Customer oriented approach, know your customer, talk to your customer, build community - we keep hearing this when working within a startup environment. Each customer segment is a story on its own and we need to take it into account, but what about the founder? Working closely with startup founders for more than a decade made me realize that each founder is a story on their own as well, deeply woven into the startup’s story, the startup product and eventually that customer community. So for a change, let’s talk about founders today! Here are some less frequently mentioned fragments of the startup founder role, read on!
Founders are, obvious but prone to neglect, humans and thus not always up to hustling 24/7, sleeping at the desk, skipping showers, forgetting names of their family & friends and ruining their health. We need to de-romanticize the hustle culture and create an environment where entrepreneurship and innovation are open to healthy & balanced individuals.
Success looks differently to different people. God forbid we all want to be Elon or Mark. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting founders who made the difference with their solution, generated enough revenue to cover reasonable expenses for themselves and their families and stay sane for themselves and their community. No, they did not become unicorns and that’s more than ok.
There are founders who found a business for the sake of founding a business and being a founder. They usually don’t last and actually the sooner they are out, the better for them. There are other options in life and that’s amazing.
Founding a startup can be exhausting and stressful, often juggling the day job and new tasks and it’s a challenge keeping a productive & balanced routine. Being part of a program (mastermind, accelerator, mentoring) can help keep the structure and priorities in place.
Being a founder can be a lonely experience. Initially, most founders are actually solo-founders until the right co-founder match appears. Finding support for yourself is equally important as securing your business supporters.
When embarking on the extraordinary journey of founding a startup and reaching out to potential collaborators, programs and communities, make sure that apart from the professional expertise you also get a whole lot of human to human support. Have a chat with Canopy CxO in Residence board: https://linktr.ee/canopy_inresidence
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