I had lunch last week\u00a0with a startup founder named Brian, a young man\u00a0I mentored during his college years at DePaul University in Chicago. He started two technology companies while in school, both of which had promising starts. However, neither one took off so he decided to work as a software engineer for a couple years in the midst of a hot tech market.<\/p>\n
As a true entrepreneur, Brian\u00a0eventually discovered another business opportunity which he worked on part-time with a co-founder. In 2013, he met\u00a0an angel investor on the west coast\u00a0who wanted to put money into the\u00a0tech\u00a0startup. The investor, who has experience in the industry, asked the two founders\u00a0to move to California\u00a0so he could help them build the business. Brian quit his software\u00a0job and off they\u00a0went.<\/p>\n
Today, Brian’s company\u00a0has nearly 50 employees,\u00a0a leadership team of six, revenues in the high seven figures, and is about to close its Series B round of capital. He\u00a0estimates the company will approach 100 people by this time next year.<\/p>\n
After filling me in on their steep growth trajectory, Brian\u00a0told\u00a0me that he reads virtually all of the blog posts from The Junto Institute, finding\u00a0much of the content relevant to his experiences and helpful in thinking through the challenges of growing a company.<\/p>\n
He talked for a good 8-10 minutes, commenting on how how hard it is to build a fast-growing company and carry the accompanying\u00a0weight on your shoulders: the anxiety, worry, long hours, sleeplessness, impatience, frustration. He effectively conveyed the gnawing sense that things can never go too fast or too well, and that yet things\u00a0can crumble and collapse any day because they’re going too fast or too well.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Brian has a heightened level of self-awareness to (a) even know this; and (b) to do something about it. It’s why he took a few days off and got on a plane to Chicago to “just walk\u00a0the city and play video games with friends.” He further impressed me by saying that he’s diligent\u00a0about taking weekends off to spend time with his girlfriend and get to know the area around his new home.<\/p>\n
Brian\u00a0closed his soliloquy by looking me straight in the eyes and saying what so many founders\u00a0know far too well and find themselves saying far too often: “You know, it’s lonely at the top.”<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
There’s a\u00a0passive approach to dealing with loneliness and being an entrepreneur – reading books, thinking by yourself, joining an organization – and there’s the active approach: showing up to events, talking with others, and\u00a0asking for help. The passive approach is easier and takes less time but it’s far less effective. The active approach, on the other hand, requires significant effort and a big\u00a0time commitment, but the payoff is extraordinary.<\/p>\n
The key is to find or build a peer group, not only of entrepreneurs and business owners who are experiencing the same things at the same time, but also those who have “been there, done that”. No one – and I really mean\u00a0no one<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0– can have true, genuine empathy for startup founders and entrepreneurs except their peers.<\/p>\n It can start with something as simple as a mentor or advisor\u00a0who, by the way, doesn’t have to be someone older and\/or with\u00a0more experience; it can be a peer mentor. Good mentors and\u00a0advisors are people who make us\u00a0smarter and better every time we\u00a0have a conversation with them because they force us\u00a0to think. They’re willing to listen\u00a0at length,\u00a0talk openly about mistakes and failures, and share lessons learned. The more selective we\u00a0are, the better the relationship and the better the outcome. Over time, finding 3-5 of these types of mentors can evolve into a peer group of sorts.<\/p>\n Having a peer group helps with the questions we\u00a0have about improving the company culture, hiring the right people, knowing when to fire them, and how to delegate more. Talking with fellow\u00a0entrepreneurs helps us\u00a0stay focused, avoid “shiny object syndrome”, and reduce distractions. Being around those who are in our\u00a0shoes helps us\u00a0feel better about not knowing\u00a0how to read financials, which employment laws apply to our\u00a0company, or how to do strategic planning. And most importantly, such peers can\u00a0help\u00a0us\u00a0breathe easier, walk us\u00a0off the proverbial ledge, and just plain keep us\u00a0relatively sane.<\/p>\n In other words, we\u00a0have a business partner, sounding board, personal coach, psychologist, and MBA program all in one.<\/p>\n So where can\u00a0we\u00a0find these people? They’re probably listed in our\u00a0phone and LinkedIn contacts right now. They’re members of entrepreneurial organizations that we, too, can probably join. They belong to angel networks that we\u00a0may have pitched for funding. They’re there for us\u00a0to find; we\u00a0just have to put in the effort.<\/p>\n Even for those entrepreneurs who are fairly young or in communities that lack\u00a0groups and organizations for growing companies, the simplest thing to do is exercise our\u00a0entrepreneurial muscle. Take the initiative to organize a dinner, go out for drinks, form an invitation-only\u00a0meetup, etc. Believe it or not, when we say “it’s lonely at the top”, it’s true for\u00a0everyone<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>so others will actually respond and show up.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n In fact, that’s what I challenged Brian to do.\u00a0He asked with amusement when we were going to bring Junto out west, to which I responded that if he found a few other companies in his\u00a0area that are facing similar challenges, we would consider it. His amusement gave way to a serious look, embracing the idea as a possibility.\u00a0Because while it always\u00a0feels<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0like it’s lonely at the top, it doesn’t have to\u00a0be<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0that way.<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leadership"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/IMG_1181.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1676,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/1676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}