Most startup owners are consumed by ambition, profit, and competition in the initial years of their establishment. They work diligently and meticulously to turn their dreams into reality. However, few owners know which path to take once successful. As time passes, they find themselves at a professional crossroad: should they lead a small enterprise or become wealthier in a bigger one. In this article for ‘Forbes,’ Brian Scudamore shares what you should do when you encounter such a dilemma.
What Is ‘Founder’s Dilemma’?
Noam Wasserman, author and professor at Harvard Business School, defines ‘founder’s dilemma’ as the confusion between being a king and being rich. Entrepreneurs can be wealthy by accepting investors and working hard to expand the company way beyond the founder’s vision or capabilities. You can choose to be a king, where you keep yourself out of the business decisions, but the growth ultimately impacts you. The proper solution to get a clearer understanding is to ask yourself some questions.
What?
You need to ask yourself, ‘what success means to you?’. Everyone has their own definition, and it is good to know what you think. One of the measures to get a better perspective on this is the ‘1-3-5 exercise’. It highlights what is important to you in the coming one, three, and five years. This exercise gives you a more precise insight and might help you in making your decision.
How?
You need to define your professional happiness. Marie Kondo started this much-needed idea of motivating entrepreneurs to ask themselves what sparks joy in them. To make the result more comprehensive, make two columns. In the first, write things that you love. In the second column, write something that you dislike.
Somewhere down the line, every entrepreneur has to choose between maintaining the current business size or expanding the business further. But it depends on you if you want to change from ‘founder’s dilemma’ to ‘founder’s great opportunity’ to do the next best thing in your life.
Click on the link to read the full article:
