Don’t Sacrifice Growth for a Good Night’s Sleep

You’re ready to turn your winning idea into a growing, thriving, real-world business. It’s time to step out of your comfort zone and get serious about what you will (and won’t) do for success.

Despite solid ambition, some Female Mavericks struggle with the mindset needed to be an entrepreneur. We remain too conservative about making investments, less likely to look for early financing and more likely to bootstrap our business. (Never mind that men raise 95% of all venture funding because human nature is to lend a financial hand to people that look just like you.)

This discomfort with risk taking and ongoing self-doubt, incredibly, seems to be rooted very early in a Female Maverick’s brain. A study from the Journal of Adolescence showed that 15-year-old female students had nearly double the fear of failure as their male counterparts. Counterintuitively, the smarter the student, the worse the fear.

It doesn’t help that nearly every author or podcaster out there waxing on about their overnight startup success seems to be a vest-wearing bro late to brunch after a quick stop in his Flatiron loft. It’s like the male gender is genetically predisposed to crush the startup game while women lead lives of quiet accountancy.

Get comfortable with a little discomfort.

Like it or not, you’re going to have to take some risks that aren’t always going to feel good if you want to be successful at launching and growing a business. For starters, every Female Maverick feels super cash strapped at the beginning of her startup journey. For us, every time we had to write a four- or five-figure check, we felt like our skin was being ripped off a la Silence of the Lambs. Definitely not pleasant. But so much better than hesitating and ultimately missing (or willfully ignoring) a “once-in-a-business-lifetime” opportunity and watching a more aggressive competitor beat you to the punch and run off with your dream.

Believe in yourself, your network and, most importantly, your personal reasons for taking this leap.

We were lucky that the fear of not trying our hand at the startup game weighed more heavily on our Female Maverick minds than the fear of failure. (If we’re being really honest, a healthy level of naiveté made failure not even a manifestation in our brains.) It certainly helped that we were supported by a network of entrepreneurially-minded friends and family who told us we could do it. Thankfully, we believed them, without reservation.

Even if you don’t have the benefit of obliviousness or an unshakeable network of support, you always have your driving motivation, although you should, at least, have the latter if you complete Rule Two: Build Yourself a Kitchen Cabinet. In our most hyper realistic moments, we agreed on a few highly calculated financial risks, which we are even implementing today as we launch business number three. We weigh these against some very lofty financial goals, and one important personal one - we are determined to spend time with our family in a way the corporate environment simply couldn’t allow.

Over the next month, we’ll show you how to lean into Rule Three and the Must Dos that will help you push past your reservations and feel more comfortable doing the difficult things that will get you to your ultimate why, whatever that looks like for you.

Rule Three: The Female Maverick Must Dos

Step 1: Be realistic about the capital required to build your business.

Do the math. Early. Know what you will need, and when. And get comfortable with what you might have to give up early on to get what you really want from this venture in the end.

Step 2: Commit to non-negotiable financial rules of engagement.

Yes, you will do hard things. But there are limits. Every entrepreneur’s non-negotiables will be unique to both their financial history and their business. The important thing is establishing clear spending and investment boundaries at launch to avoid falling prey to the business equivalent of impulse buying.

Step 3: Wait for your opportunity.

A brilliant business idea, at the wrong time, is still a failure. It’s tough to see clearly when angsting over a potentially make-it-or-break opportunity. Lean into your network, hard, to make sure you aren’t blinded by the rose-colored glasses every entrepreneur wears from time to time.

Step 4: Swing big at the right time.

The winning business opportunity will make sense both on paper and in your gut. Learn how to recognize it. And be ready to respond appropriately when yours comes your way. Batter up….

Step 5: Get comfortable giving up some equity earlier than you planned.

Growth isn’t easy. Or cheap. Unless you want your business to grind to a halt because you can’t rapidly develop products or services to meet a major customer opportunity, don’t take equity investment off the table. Ever. Remember, a strategically timed outside investment that delivers will increase your riches, irrespective of the ownership percentage.

What’s Next?

We Female Mavericks must shift our mindset to that of a startup goddess. This shift needs to be complete. No half-sies. Next week, we’ll start by looking at what it’s going to take – financially and emotionally – to build your business. And we’ll show you how to commit (on paper, possibly even laminated on the first page of your goals journal) to what you are giving up, and why, to pursue this dream and become the entrepreneur you envision becoming.