3 Things we wish we knew before taking the entrepreneurial leap
(scroll to the bottom of this article for the audio file)
“It is hard to find candidates for the job openings we have because everyone has become CEO & Founder now” was posting a recruiter on LinkedIn the other day. No comment on this - as co-founders at Journee since 2021, we are “guilty as charged” - but we do have some thoughts on taking the entrepreneurial leap, speaking from our own experience.
Taking the leap, generally speaking, brings to mind all sorts of visuals: a frog leaping through a summer rainy day, an acrobatic high diving performance at the Olympics or a first jump into the cold lake early summer. Yes, starting your own business can look like this!
How about the emotions that emerge? Something that draws you, attracts you but also scares you a bit or a whole lot? Exciting but “not ready for” it? Something risky that is worth a certain level of sacrifice, for its chance of turning from dream to reality? Yes, starting the entrepreneurship journey can feel like this!
1. Entrepreneurship takes a high level of emotional endurance
We considered the risks, we prepared for getting some hard lessons, we trained for humble-pie eating and braced for cold contacting campaigns and for withstanding rejections.
Little idea we had of the roller coaster we will be riding every day, up and down, yay and nay, yuhuu and phew, on and on. We discovered entrepreneurship to be a mentally and emotionally endurance sport.
2. “Not fully ready” and “not knowing everything” is the status quo
Risk is an imminent part of running your own business and one must be comfortable with a certain level of unknown. It is called a leap of faith because a good dose of trust, self confidence and positivity is needed to make the uncomfortable comfortable. During our first year we learned so much, we experienced a whole lot of “1st time situations” - good and bad and we stepped outside our comfort zone.
3. Trust your instinct and let it infuse your decisions
Remember saying “if this were my business I would do things differently” while being employed? Well, this is your chance to do things your way. As co-founders at Journee we brought in our experience, our personalities, our values but also some preconceptions. Little by little we built a business around our common values, one that accommodates our individual character and one where our instinct (shared or one-sided) is welcome at the table when we are making decisions. We are big on data and facts but we also learned the added value brought by good ol’ gut feeling.
In the audio here below we share more from our own experience of taking the leap to entrepreneurship. This talk between us as co-founders of Journee “exposes”, if you wish, how different the process has been for the two of us as individuals, shows how we perceive and manage risk taking with a different personal measure as well as how we make do - together.
Thank you for reading and/or listening through!
About Journee - Digital at Ease
Founded by two digital marketing professionals with extensive international experience, Journee GmbH is a female owned digital marketing and technology boutique consultancy.
We aim to make a big difference for the small: small business owners and solopreneurs looking to start and advance on their business digital journey.
Our combined expertise covers digital marketing, digital analytics, advertising, marketing technology as well as overall digital strategy support and mentorship.