Almost a decade ago, when I started thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, I didn’t know what my day would be filled with. To my surprise, my day is not filled with writing code and photoshop files, instead it requires the following skills.
I need collaboration because I often don’t trust my first opinion. I ask various people in the company and even on social media for feedback on marketing and design. I thought by age 35 I would have more confidence in myself and wouldn’t need the feedback of others so much.
Even if your company is made up of smart, self-managing employees you need to follow up with them and make sure the tasks you’re giving them have been completed. You might be accomplishing this with daily stand-up meetings but you’re definitely spending time making sure everyone is rowing the boat in the same direction.
Every life has problems, my life has problems, our employees lives have problems. I like to think I’m someone they can talk to. Often times I find myself talking through their life problems. I didn’t realize anyone would want to look to me for problem solving advice.
We’re bootstrapped and profitable but to stay profitable you must be watching your expenses and comparing them to cash flow projections. You have to ask yourself “do we need to spend this money?” and “will this expense make us different than our competition?”
Occasionally I have to be the sales person. Which means talking to a possible client, trying to gain their trust. But I don’t mind sales, it’s taken me years to learn to ask for the money which is key to sales.
Most of these skills are learned, not gifted. Most problems are new to me. Most days I end up needing more hours to finish my tasks and most of the time I feel inadequately equipped to co-run these companies.
If you wanted it to build a product you’d find a way to get time to work on it. If you really wanted to start that new hobby you’d sacrifice something to find the time and money to do it.
I'll define a "Wannabe Entrepreneur" as someone who has never made money from their businesses. Here are the different types of wannabes.
In the past few years I've built go-carts, built a 200+ sq ft workshop, written several eBooks. How do I create a life where I have time to work on side projects?