Joyful Entrepreneurship
How entrepreneurship feels at times
8 figures raise from top VCs from 4 continents, scaling up to 300+ workforce, $20M+ traction and more importantly 2 pivots, 3 mass layoffs, surviving competitor and much more ...
When I started my founder journey in a country that I had roughly 0 startup-VC network back in 2018 I wouldn't have assumed to experience all of the above.
Having worked closely with numerous founders these past months, I see the problems are all but common and majority can be avoided if contingencies are planned in advance.
I tried helping via 1on1s but quickly noticed the issues are universal and I'm having less and less bandwidth as my new venture is scaling up. Hence will start posting (hopefully) in biweekly fashion to share all the lessons, trials & tribulations via LinkedIn. Hoping that it will help out founders who are in the trenches out there.
The odds of succeeding for startups. IPOs happen at $100M-$200M mark. We got to $20M+ mark in under 18 months.
Even from my intro and header above, you can see that the entrepreneurship myth is surrounded by the concept of suffering, Hard Thing About Hard things and many more books written by the most influential people in our domain.
I believe there is another way. During my sabbatical, I was lucky enough to stumble upon great people who departed to their journey from a place of love (joy) instead of a place of fear (freedom, self-proof etc.)
Below is a great summary of different levels of energy. Knowing from my and many of my cohort's experiences, the founder journey starts with Courage (200+) and when shit hit the fans, gets in a volatile place between Anger (150), Guilt (30), Fear (100) and many more of the lower energy zones.
Where we source our energy from.
Joy and True Power is having habitual energy levels above 500. For my next venture this was my key priority. Putting my oxygen mask first before building my team and helping others.
Departing from a place of love also provides a much more sustainable energy source. When troubles arise, aka pain, I can see it as a fun case study to solve, a surprise to be experienced with Joy. Instead of dwelling on it and turning into a "Suffering."
This is a super short teaser into what I will be sharing biweekly. Again, I wanted to make sure this does not become another chore that I have to do. But instead, an activity that I look forward to and pass the joy of entrepreneurship onto other curious souls out there.
Wrapping this one up, I just want to share a really famous quote from someone we all know. And I truly believe there is another, more joyful, more loving and more powerful way to experience this most fulfilling journey that we all have set on course to.
See you all on the next one!
Maybe there is another way to experience this.
End of Part
Coming Next
Do you need to work with VCs?
How VCs filter out & find ideal startups?
What does chasing the dragon mean?
Bonus Stuff
Join us at Fundraising Success Group on LinkedIn where we share more in-depth insights and real startup examples.
