Mandela Schumacher-Hodge
There are two types of people in this world: those who
want to know and those who’d rather not know. This post is for the
people who want to know.
Imagine we’re at the doctor’s office, and you’re
informed that two patients are going in for the same surgery today. On one end
of the waiting room sits the patient that has a notepad and pen in hand. This
patient has many more questions to ask the doctor, before the procedure
actually begins. She wants to confirm that she fully understands every single
detail — big or
small— about what’s about to happen to her while under the knife.
Then in walks the second patient. She checks in, flips
through a couple magazines, quickly gets changed, and when escorted back to
where the surgeon’s waiting, simply says, “Give me the funny gas Doc, and let’s
get this party started!”
This blog post isn’t for those people; the one’s
diving headfirst into life’s experiences, trusting that everything will “just
work out.”
This blog is for the people out there who bring their
notepad and pen to the doctor’s office. It’s for those who like to get as much
information as possible before committing to anything. These people find
comfort in having clear expectations, so they can feel more prepared to handle
what’s coming next (or simply decide to opt out altogether).
So if that sounds like you, and you’re thinking about
taking the plunge into entrepreneurship, continue on. If that’s not you,
though, that’s totally OK. Get back out there and keep experiencing things for
yourself! Hopefully, I’ll see you back here on Monday for my next post.
So you’re the ones with the notepads and pens. Well,
hello there. It’s nice to meet you. Below I’ve outlined six things that no one
tells you, but really should,
about starting your own company. I share these things with the intention of
telling as much truth as possible, so that you can feel equipped to make the
decision that’s best for you.
1) You’re going to suck at being your own boss (at
first)
People think that if you’re your own boss, you’ve made
it; you’re living the life everyone dreams of. No clocking in and out for you.
No reporting to anyone else. No one telling you what you can and cannot do.
There’s just absolutely nothing standing between you and what you want
to do. Ahhh…isn’t that the life!
Sure, it’s cool. I get it. I really do. I’ve been
there before, and some could say I’m in that position right now. But what a lot
of people won’t tell you is how much work you’re going to have to do on yourself,
in order to become the type of person that can actually run a successful
business. Leaders of successful companies don’t just happen; they’re made.
People who go into business for themselves are opting
out of a 9–5 and into the “whenever, wherever, however” business of getting
sh*t done. They no longer have the luxury of reporting to work on Monday to
receive a set of pre-determined assignments from a boss. They are the
boss, and being the boss means you have a whole new set of responsibilities. As
the CEO, it’s up to you to decide what needs to get done, by whom, and by when.
It’s up to you to make the “big” decisions, and make sure those decisions are
the right ones, as often as possible.
As the leader of a company, you have to be constantly
thinking about others: your employees, customers, partners, investors,
advisors, lawyers, accountants, etc. It’s one of the most challenging (and
rewarding) pursuits you can undertake: trying to become an exceptional leader.
And there’s no room for cutting corners or cheating. Any progress you make, any
success you achieve, it has to be fully earned through a lot of painstaking
work…day after day, month after month, year after year.
All in all, being your own boss requires an incredible
amount of discipline, sacrifice, and dedication. And that takes time to
perfect. Just know that you’ll probably be working on perfecting that skill
your entire life, because as your business gets more complicated, so does
learning how to operate it. It’s a never-ending process of work and personal
development.
2) You will have a breakdown (at some point)
Identify problem
Research
Plan
Strategize
Build
Prototype
Validate
Network
Recruit
Position
Onboard
Manage
Develop
Test
Iterate
Solidify product market fit
Fundraise
Scale
Highlight everything in the list above.
Copy and paste it directly below the first list.
Repeat this process 10–100 more times.
When done, you will now have a sense of what you’ll
have to do, in order to build a successful company
It’s a lot, right? Yes, I know. Being a founder is INCREDIBLY HARD!!!! (I
hope all those exclamation points really help drive that message home.) It’s so
difficult, in fact, that it is absolutely normal and OK to
feel overwhelmed by all the pressure to get everything done, and get it done as
quickly as possible, with as few mistakes as possible.
Private breakdowns are extremely
common in the world of startups, and are something you should know about, because
when it does happen to you, you won’t have to feel alone. You’ll know that
there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other aspiring entrepreneurs who
sometimes struggle with managing it all too. Others who don’t have it all
figured out all the time either. You’ll realize that this is just a part of
building a successful business: doing incredibly difficult things; things most
people aren’t willing to do.
Oh, but that’s not going to be
me. I’m tough! I’ve always been a leader, and I’ve overcome incredibly
challenging things already; I can handle this too. Okie
dokie. Suit it yourself. Just please do me a favor and ping me on Twitter with
a little smiley face, if you ever do find that I was right. Thanks :)
3) Your partner may leave you, and your family and
friends may start to dislike you
Most everything you know as your life today will no
longer exist once you make the decision to start your own business. Sleeping
in, eating breakfast and dinner every night at home, dropping off or picking up
your kids from school, making your Wednesday night softball games, meeting up
with your friends every Friday for happy hour, keeping up with your book club,
eating, exercising, and sleeping regularly, watching movie marathons on
Netflix, making it over to your cousin’s for Sunday Football, taking a
vacation…
Yeah, you can seriously kiss a lot of that goodbye.
Starting a company means that you’re entering “Sacrifice Central,” and “making”
it here requires that you change your life in some pretty significant ways. And
while you make those changes, there’s a very high likelihood that many people
in your life may not be a fan of those changes. They may not like having less
access to you. They may say, Hey, this isn’t what I
signed up for; this isn’t the life I thought I’d share with you. Just
know that your decision to start a business will affect others in your life, so make sure you’re up front about that
with them, and see if
there’s a way you can all meet in the middle.
4) If you don’t know yourself now, you’re going to
have a tough time
When starting a business, if you don’t have a good
sense of who you are, who you want to be, and why you’re choosing this
particular route to get there, you’ll be more susceptible to the rough elements
of this industry. You’ll be more likely to get swayed, get pulled in directions
you may not want to go, or easily get caught up in the noise and fanfare of it
all.
What will be driving you won’t be grounded in a deeper
purpose. And even if you reach your goals, once you get there, you’ll still
feel empty. Even after all that hard work and sacrifice, you’ll feel empty
because you still haven’t taken the time to figure out who you really are and
what makes you happy. You’ll continue to numb
yourself with work. You’ll keep your head down and you’ll keep trudging away,
in fervent pursuit of that “next great milestone.” And when you get there,
you’ll realize something: happiness isn’t there either. I’d better keep going.
Maybe it’s at the next stop?, you’ll think to yourself.
And on and on it goes like this.
So please, take some time to get clear on who
you are and why exactly
building a company is the best path for you. As with anything, you don’t have to have it all
figured out in advance (i.e. you don’t have to see the whole staircase, before
taking the first step), but you should at least have the initial conversation
with yourself. You should ground your vision in things thatreally matter
to you, things that matter to you on a deeply personal level. Because it is
these things that will be your motivation to weather any storm, to overcome any
challenge in your pursuit to bring your vision to life.
5) It will take you waaaay longer than you think
Founded in 1976, Apple really
didn’t get on the map until eight years later when the Macintosh was invented.
Ben Silbermann, the founder of Pinterest, quit his job at Google in 2008 to pursue his own
startup. The first app he created was called Tote. It flopped, but he kept at
it. He built another app called Pinterest and launched it in 2010. Three years
later, its userbase grew to 25 million. That’s a total of seven years Ben was
grinding it out, before making it big.
There are a lot of stories like this, and the point
is: building a successful company takes time. Waaaaay more time than most
people think. So whatever number you have in your head for the years it will
take you to get where you want to go, you may want to double or triple that.
Just remember, it’s not a sprint; it’s
a marathon full of a lot of different types of sprints.
6) You will likely fail. Seriously, the odds are not in your favor.
Within 3 years, 92% of startups fail. Just think, if you and 99
of your friends all decide to start a business today, by the summer of 2018,
all of you will have failed, except for 8. Only 8 people will still be out
there fighting the good fight. Crazy, isn’t it?! Yes, but that’s the world of startups.
Lots of big aspirations, but very few success stories.
And those few success stories are what keeps this
industry alive. It’s the lifeline that feeds inspiration to the next generation
of aspiring entrepreneurs, working tirelessly for their spot in the “Elite 8.”
It’s what keeps many investors coming back, no matter how many bad bets they’ve
made in the past. The success stories make us believe; make us believe that the
impossible ispossible,
and that the risk is worth
the reward.
For those that wanted it, I’ve candidly shared some of
the things that you really can expect to experience if you decide to take the
plunge into entrepreneurship. My intention is to simply inform. To let you see
behind the curtain and into the crystal ball, so that you won’t be caught off
guard, you will be able to prepare accordingly, and you can can decide for
yourself if this is the right next step for you.
Either way, I wish you all the best.
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