Go alone, go fast. Go with others, go far.
Entrepreneur, My Journey: Episode 6
(Episode 1: Time to Cast Off; Episode 2: Taking the Plunge; Episode 3: Christopher Columbus; Episode 4: The Dark Night; Episode 5: Deep Breath, no end in sight)
My first decision on day 1 of becoming an entrepreneur was to go alone. I didn’t want a co-founder. I didn’t want to have to negotiate with anyone. I didn’t want to waste precious time debating and finding compromises. I wanted speed. So my simple business approach was to go alone to go fast.
Focus and Speed
Going alone allowed me to think fast and act quickly during the first six months. I consulted a lot with friends and my business network when necessary, but ultimately I made the decision. It provided me with all the agility required in the first months. I didn’t have to discuss the business priorities and market approach with anyone. I just had to make intelligent decisions and adjust quickly when necessary.
I wanted to go fast. Very fast. Because “time is money” goes the saying. Well, that becomes very true when you start your own business. At the very beginning when there was no cash in, only cash out, no clients, and uncertainty in front of me, I lived on savings and my wife’ salary. Speed was necessary. It was crucial to achieve results (client work, revenue) as soon as possible to avoid encountering financial problems. I knew that ending in personal financial distress would simply destroy everything I was trying to build.
When you speed on the highway you need to focus on the road and anticipate the possibility of a mishap. It felt the same at the beginning of launching my business. As I was gaining speed, I was also focusing with laser precisions on my goals. I didn’t want anything to undermine my efforts or divert my attention from my goals.
I applied focus and speed to everything in my business: my marketing activities, business development, lead generation, client proposal writing, client communications, client work, engagement delivery, etc.
My Business, My Platform
In the first months of developing my business, I didn’t generate a lot of sales, but I still engaged with hundreds of people online and off-line. I attended conferences, organized my own events, launched partnerships. I wrote thought leadership papers, published brochures, interviews, videos, etc.
I became visible.
Of course, I was still very small. But I was visible to my extended business network as well as in my industry. My business was becoming my platform to be found.
I started alone because I wanted focus and speed. But I knew it was not the end of the story. Certainly not. I also wanted to go far.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.”
African Proverb
I always knew that after a short period (6 moths, 10 months), I had to find a co-founder or be found by some people. Otherwise I would never be able to build the consulting business I envisioned. I never wanted to be a one man band type of business, or a contractor. I wanted to innovate in my industry, find my niche, create my own market, build a brand name, and succeed.
I don’t believe in luck, but I believe that we can create our own luck. We can set up the right environment to increase the chances for something to happen.
So I built myself a platform: a business. And it worked.
The Partnership
Six months into my business, I was contacted out of the blue by two owners of a foreign business, outside of Europe. They were in the same consulting industry as me. They had noticed my new company in London. They had seen the content I had been pushing recently. The marketing activity. They had researched my background. They actually came with an offer: they wanted to set up a business in the United Kingdom, in our industry, and they were looking for a partner to make it happen. They also had cash to invest.
I was intrigued. I didn’t know these guys at all. We met a first time, a second time. A month passed. They came back to London. We had another meeting. I conducted my own due diligence on them using my contacts in the industry. I received very positive feedback. So we continued our discussion. We sketched some possible plans for cooperation. We started to work on business plan. I was full of hope. Was I finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel?
Yes I was. It took us four months to agree and decide what we wanted to do together. We shared the same vision of the market. We had similar professional backgrounds and overlapping business networks across the world. We understood where our industry was stuck, and where the untapped opportunities were. We had a clear idea of where the blue ocean was.
Our Business
We finally shared a vision of our business. Yes, our business. It was no longer my business. It was suddenly our business. I was no longer in the fight on my own. The dark night was behind me. I had found allies in the never ending battle of building a business. I reached land after months lost at sea. I had found partners. I had two partners. We were all in business together.
I closed down the business that I had founded a few months ago. It was a great personal experience of course. I managed to win some good client work on my own, but it was far from enough to get the business to take off. This adventure was one of the toughest moments in my life. It was really hard. It changed me for ever.
We set up a new company in London. We were now three business partners. We created a new brand, a website, marketing collaterals, and we hit the market in just a few weeks. We had to tell our new story to the world. We had to meet everyone in the industry. We had to get some quick wins. We had to pitch. Again. Again. And again. Relentless. The energy deployed was once again huge.
Getting in business with partners doesn’t mean that suddenly life became easy. It didn’t. It’s another story, another battle. Another human battle. Another business story.
USD 700,000 Later
Today our business is just one year old. We started in August 2019. We went through the COVID months in 2020 successfully. We now operate 100% remotely, with a team scattered around several countries. As of August 2020, our turn over reached USD 700,000.
As I say in the first article of this series (Time to Cast Off), I don’t consider this a success at all. It’s great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just the beginning. We just launched. We took off. Like a plane, we are just 50 seconds after take off, we are still powering through the air to escape gravity. The risk of crashing is very high during this time. Efforts deployed are huge. Intensity is high. Focus is extreme. That’s where we are now.
Entrepreneur, My Journey
Read previous episodes
Episode 1: Time to Cast Off
Episode 2: Taking the Plunge
Episode 3: Christopher Columbus
Episode 4: The Dark Night
Episode 5: Deep Breath. No End in Sight
Episode 6: Go alone, go fast. Go with others, go far.
Thank you for reading. I just want to share my journey as an entrepreneur as my story may help someone who is going through a professional life crisis or who simply has questions about what to do next. I have always fed on stories from others to help me in life. I hope I can help someone with my story.
Jason
