Don't forget to invest in your own professional development as a founder
Investing in yourself is just as important as investing in the company
Launching a startup is an attempt to change how the world works, or at least a certain part of it.
It takes a tremendous amount of energy, time, and money. It’s even more difficult if you’re starting where no one knows who you are or your company. So, as founders, it’s our job to make the world care about what we’re building and make it worth caring about. We spend years of our life, nights and weekends, trying to grow our companies. We become the company, and it becomes our identity in many ways.
But you’re not the company—you’re the one building it. And you need to invest in building yourself too.
A startup is like a child. It has great potential, but it needs love, nourishment, and guidance. And it’s your responsibility to become a good parent.
When I started Sora, I was young, coming right out of college. I had a very small network and didn’t have much direct experience building a world class company. Normally, when you’re fundraising from investors for an early stage business, they say “team is the most important thing”. We had a pretty unimpressive team (if you purely looked at our credentials and work experience) compared to that of many amazing startups.
So, I had to work super hard to become a great operator. I did some things well and flat out failed at others. Here’s a compilation of what I’ve learned is important so you can have an idea of how to invest in yourself:
Never stop reading and learning.
As a founder, you’re constantly solving problems and figuring out how to get from point A to point B. When the company grows, the problems change and you have to deal with increasingly complex and different situations. Your rate of development needs to match that of the company, or eventually you won’t be capable of solving those problems anymore.
Some of the greatest founders in the world are voracious readers. In fact, a decent amount of successful people are as well. It also extends to other formats as well—blogs, podcasts, etc. No matter the format, you need to constantly build your knowledge base so you can build a great product, team, and company.
And it also doesn’t hurt to read things outside of your industry as well. The most creative ideas often come from unexpected places.
Network.
This is a pretty broadly applicable lesson. Networking isn’t just what you do to get a job or raise money. It’s also about meeting and connecting with people and helping each other. In the case of the founder, it’s about meeting people you can learn from.
As a young founder who hadn’t seen much of the world yet, I needed to see what great looks like. Nothing replaces direct experience, but I had to get as close as possible by meeting with great founders and subject matter experts in education and marketing. I would reach out to peers in my industry and ask them to meet up for coffee. I’d cold email people I admired and ask them questions. I met regularly with other founders to share ideas and learnings and made some good friends that way.
In doing so, I learned a great deal about how to grow alongside my company as we grew. From becoming a manager for the first time to learning how to build marketing systems and processes to hiring good people, having a solid network of experienced operators was essential.
Build your personal brand.
I’m not saying it has to look like one of those tacky, hustle-porn LinkedIn accounts. Building your personal brand could simply be using Twitter and posting your thoughts about your product and industry. It could be attending a lot of industry events and general startup events. It could be investing in companies in your space. It could be writing a book or making TikToks or hosting a podcast.
Whatever your flavor of personal brand is, it’s about putting yourself out there and making sure people get to know BOTH you and your company. Build your expertise and share it with others, whether it’s other founders, people in your industry, investors, or your customers/users. It’ll return dividends—don’t ignore this one.
Get a coach.
You have to deal with a lot as a founder. If you’ve got co-founders, they’ve got a lot on their plate as well. It helps to have someone to talk to about what you’re going through. But your significant other often won’t get what you’re going through, and the majority of your friends probably won’t either.
That’s why, once your business is a bit more established, you should get an executive coach.
It was one of the most personally impactful decisions I made as a founder. A good coach can help you significantly with your personal development (more or less everything I’ve described in this email) by being a great point of accountability, helping you make important decisions, and advise you on how to become a better leader. Crucially, they’re not a crutch or someone who will directly tell you what to do (unless you really need a good kick in the right direction). They’re there to help you figure that out yourself.
Make sure you’re happy and have energy.
This entrepreneurship thing is a marathon. Of course you’re going to be working long hours, constantly thinking about the company, and dealing with random fires and problems all the time. But you have to stay sane and have enough energy and mental well-being to deal with it all. And that starts with super basic stuff: eating a good diet, exercising regularly, having hobbies or an outlet that’s not work-related.
Of course, telling a founder to have “work-life balance” is mostly an exercise in futility. What’s most important is to have a balance that makes you happy and ready to take on the challenges ahead of you. But just don’t neglect yourself.
Eventually, you and the company will part ways (whether in a good, sad, or violent way, it’ll happen). You don’t plan for it, of course, but it’s the reality. And like it or not, when that happens, you need to continue being successful at whatever you do afterwards. Investing in your professional development, your network, your knowledge, and your mind and body is the way to do that.
- Indra, February 2023
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