Three Things I love about being an Entrepreneur
It’s been three months since I left my corporate job to work full time along with my two sisters, for Pinch. It was a difficult decision, with the usual considerations of financial, career future, personal values and family dynamics to weigh; but as the dream took shape I was convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was something I needed to do.
With just 90 days under my belt as a full-time business owner, I’ve already experienced some of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. I’ve felt the high of closing a big sale and the low of losing a loyal customer. I’ve had to fight the tendency to get caught up in tactics at the expense of the strategic vision and I’ve felt the rush of making a business decision with my own capital on the line. I’ve been deflated watching an Ad campaign fall flat and enjoyed the sense of accomplishment of getting referrals from happy customers. Despite these ups and downs (or perhaps because of them) I have woken up every single day for the past 3 months excited to go to work, energized to face the challenges and grateful for the opportunity to run my own business. So far, these are my favourite things about being an entrepreneur:
#3: Nothing is just theoretical
When you’re running a small business, everything is so real and so practical. Theories are extremely useful, and I’m glad that I have the academic background and corporate experience that I do, but nothing is abstract or theoretical for me anymore. Consumer demand theory is no longer just an interesting thought experiment. The marginal cost of production is no longer just a fun set of equations to solve. The high cost of customer acquisition vs. retention is no longer just hearsay. Customer feedback and brand loyalty are not catch words in my business lexicon but rather things that literally keep me up at night figuring out how I can get them.
#2: Figuring it out
I love figuring things out. In my old job when my computer broke down, I called the IT department, when I wanted to track internet traffic on a particular online product, I contacted the Marketing department, when we wanted to hire a summer student, I worked with the HR department. Now, all of those departments are part of my current job description. Don’t get me wrong, I often find myself in situations where I would gladly give my left kidney for access to my old IT department, but I do love the rush of figuring things out and the ingenuity that it breeds. The stakes are high, it’s sink or swim, and this is problem solving at its best and most fun.
#1: Variety is the spice of life: learning every aspect of the business
On any given day you might find me doing corporate taxes (should that be in retained earnings or deferred dividend payment?); figuring out some computer code to embed ‘buy buttons’ in my website (how the heck do you centre those product pics?); designing an Ad campaign for Facebook or delivering dinners to families (I really need a better GPS system that maximizes routes). There’s a reason the burnout is one of the top reasons that small businesses fail in the first 5 years. The workload is heavy, but the variety is invigorating and I love to think about my business in the future with employees overseeing different parts but the intimate knowledge I’ll have of them all. Long days, lots of work, but never a dull moment.
Are you an Entrepreneur? I’d love to hear about your experience and the things that you love about it. Post a comment here or connect with me via my website.