Accomplishing anything significant usually requires a team. Sure, one person may be able to do it, but it will be many times harder and take much longer. The thing that makes teams so special is their synergy. Teams comprising members whose strengths and weaknesses are complementary in important areas are strong and may make the difference between the business succeeding or failing.

Not embracing this fact—or, for that matter, even knowing it—hindered me at various points in CCAW’s journey. You’d think I would have learned my lesson, but I didn’t. I didn’t know any better and didn’t have people pointing out this oversight until late in the journey. It was a huge knowledge gap.

Early on I had an idea, but I didn’t know if it would work. I focused on testing and figuring everything out myself. The end result was good: I got a product/market fit. But it took much longer than it should have. Like, years longer. I missed out on first-mover advantage in our space. We played catch-up while key vendors benchmarked us against a competitor.

Years later, we were at around $7 or $8 million in annual revenue. We had developed a reputation for being well run and fair to customers and vendors. We reached a point where a comprehensive go-to-market strategy was needed to get to my $100 million goal. How should we market to customers and installers? How could we most effectively partner with suppliers and manufacturers? How could we acquire customers cost-efficiently and predictably? All extremely important questions! I didn’t have experience in these areas, nor did anyone on the team. I tried to find people to bring on board, but I didn’t make it a top priority. So, we had a huge weakness in a critical area because I didn’t add the right people. We never hit the $100 million goal.

Creating a vision for CCAW was important. Honestly, It took me years to figure it out—much longer than it should have. Operating in our space was difficult because it was constantly shifting. My big mistake was in not thinking deeply about the skills required to achieve my vision and making it a priority to add people who had them to our team.

If you’re thinking of accomplishing something significant (personal or professional), consider what skills are needed to make your vision reality. Then figure out who has the skills you lack. Answering these questions could put you on the path to greatness with a great team.