Issue #116: Embracing the Founder Mindset

Over the past 6 months, I’ve been head down building a new tech-focused wellness company for women entrepreneurs. As I’ve been learning more about funding, pitch decks, angel investors, scaling with AI, hiring, and more, I’ve realized that while I now hold the title of “Founder,” I’m still thinking like a small business owner.

For the past 10 years of self-employment, I’ve always operated my business as a personal brand or small business.

Because of that, I’ve had the luxury of building those businesses at a much slower pace because I only had myself to worry about. The scale at which I had to run my business was smaller because the stakes weren’t high. My overhead was low. And no employees were counting on me.

To be real, as long as I made enough to get me through the next month, I was fine.

But with DEW, I’m intentionally building a company that is bigger than myself. A tech company that will have to scale exponentially to thrive.

A company with a ton of moving parts.

A company that will eventually have employees, health insurance benefits, and a much higher monthly overhead.

And yes, a company that I am building for the potential of selling down the line.

I’m thinking really big with this one, and it honestly terrifies me. Which is why I believe it’s more important than ever to make the necessary mindset shifts early on so that my limiting beliefs are not stunting the growth of this company.

Right now, I’m the face of DEW. But DEW is not a personal brand, and that distinction matters more than I realized. For 10 years, my business revolved around me. Now I’m learning how to build something that exists separately from my personal identity.

The skills and the strategies from past businesses are what got me here, but they are not what will help me get to the next level.

So I've been studying. Watching founders. Reading. Asking questions. And making note of these essential mindset shifts that will help me to go from personal brand to founder.