Successful entrepreneurs: What it’s REALLY like to grow a small business – The Wall Street Journal

___STEADY_PAYWALL___.I've got a really smart sister-in-law who built a nursery school empire after starting from scratch when she struggled to find daycare for her own children. More than two decades on, she has more than 900 employees working for her at dozens of nurseries and has an associated training business and a philanthropic vehicle to give back to the community. Until Covid-19 grounded airlines, she was punctuating her work hours with a two-week scuba-diving holiday at least every quarter – not as decadent as it sounds when you consider that growing and maintaining a business consumes most of her waking hours. Business success can be exhilarating, but getting there can feel lonely, too, with the weight of people's lives on her shoulders and risks to navigate – a similar picture shared with The Wall Street Journal by other successful entrepreneurs. – Jackie Cameron What I love – and hate – most about being an entrepreneur. By Kelly K. Spors(The Wall Street Journal) – Ask entrepreneurs what it's like to start and run their own business, and many will say it's the best thing they ever did. And the worst.That's because there's a lot to love about being an entrepreneur. There can be many rewards, both financial and emotional, to building a company from scratch.But there are also many things to dislike, both financial and emotional. It can be a roller-coaster journey – one that many entrepreneurs know all too well these days as the current health and economic crisis lays bare some of the biggest risks of going it alone.To understand this dynamic better, we asked entrepreneurs who have built successful companies – admittedly a skewed sample, but, as you will see, an honest one—about the best and worst parts of being an entrepreneur. Here are edited excerpts of what they said.Kim Jordan: New Belgium BrewingCo-founder/Former CEOHeadquarters: Fort Collins, Colo.Founded: 1991Age: 61BEST: I've loved having the freedom to make decisions about the thrust of the company – its ethical parameters, its business practices. I've loved making it up as we go along, with nobody saying, "No, you can't do that." A lot of the practices we installed at New Belgium we did sort of intuitively.For example, one unique thing we did early on was work to make decisions by consensus – giving every employee a voice. It didn't mean we watered things down so everybody loved them, but it meant we talked about it enough that everybody understood the idea enough that they were willing to support it.WORST: Probably the hardest part of being an entrepreneur is feeling so much weight on your shoulders. I have co-workers who care deeply about the company, but there's something very singular about being the founder. It can be very lonely.We started the company when I was 32, and with some of the people that we started with, I kind of grew up with them. At some point, though, you're the boss, and the boss has to say "no" and correct bad behaviours. That feels particularly negative when it's people who are your friends. So, there's that emotional murkiness of, "I really like you as a person, and I like when we go out, and I'm watching you build a family and have kids." But then I also have to say, "That behaviour there is totally unacceptable."Tim Brown: AllbirdsCo-FounderHeadquarters: San FranciscoFounded: 2016Age: 39BEST: One thing I've loved is the ability to create a culture and choose the people we work with. Joey [Zwillinger, my co-founder] and I have imagined from the beginning a high-performance environment built with compassion that attracted people that were able to go after something very serious without taking themselves too seriously. So, early on we did a few things. First, we wrote a story – a tiny vision of what success might look like – that we gave to everyone who interviewed with the company. We also came up with our three key values – simplicity, intentionality and curiosity – that were the underpinnings of the central tenets of the types of people that we wanted to attract. Then we created a mission statement of, "We make better things in a better way."So those three things have provided a lens for choosing people beyond their résumé or where they went to college and to find people who are the right fit for our company. This focus on bringing in passionate, hardworking employees who are driven by a larger purpose is really proving itself during this difficult time where we've seen our team stand up in a tremendous way.WORST: Your business embeds itself 6 inches into your brain, and you can't shake it. You're in the shower, you're out to dinner, you're on vacation—you're always thinking about it, even when you don't want to be. Taking an idea out into the skeptical world and forcing them to believe that it might make sense and then delivering on it is just extraordinarily difficult and takes a tremendous amount of mental engagement. I wouldn't say you need to be obsessive, but you need to think about it a lot. Building a business will take everything you give it. So I've learned over time that I have to set clear guardrails for myself.Reid Hoffman: LinkedInCo-Founder/Former CEOHeadquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.Founded: 2002Age: 52BEST: Entrepreneurship allows you to be an infinite learner, constantly breaking new ground, innovating and building upon your ideas. That said, you always have to be willing to adapt to new information.With LinkedIn, I started with the belief that individuals would be the first adopters of the service. However, soon after launch, we received many inquiries from businesses wanting a business account. So, we created a mock-up of the enterprise product, circulated it with prospective customers and learned what to build – and what not to build. We ended up building our first enterprise product years earlier than we planned.WORST: There's a constant anxiety that comes with starting and growing a business, which is more apparent than ever for entrepreneurs building companies during this unprecedented time. You have to have a high tolerance for uncertainty, error and correction. When we launched LinkedIn, we worried about how long it would take us to get to critical mass – if ever.A social network is not very useful to the early adopters. It's like having a telephone when none of your friends has one – who are you going to call? We knew we had to get LinkedIn to a critical mass of somewhere around one million users before it would be useful. We had to run numerous experiments in parallel. It was a very busy, anxious time.Tope Awotona: CalendlyFounder/CEOHeadquarters: AtlantaFounded: 2013Age: 39BEST: I've always been comfortable being a contrarian – a nontraditional thinker. So, the best part for me is that you can have these crazy ideas, and you can actually bet on your crazy idea and be largely responsible for its initial success or its failure. No one has to approve it.When I started this company, I encountered a lot of skepticism. Some people thought online scheduling was something only service providers needed. They thought that the current scheduling platforms were good enough. But I thought it was a great opportunity because I had experienced scheduling problems firsthand, and I saw an opportunity to execute them better. I also felt like it was a perfect problem for me to solve because I had expertise on what great software looks like.WORST: If you do a really good job of growing your business, it can become all you're known for. In the grand scheme of things, I'm very grateful for the success the business has had, but it's had the effect of defining me as a person and taking over every area of my life.For example, when I meet people, I'm very reluctant to let them know what I do because too often the conversation turns into an impromptu interview, pitch or plea for something. People will ask things like, "Can you hire me, or can you hire my friend?" "Can you give me advice on a business idea I have?" "When will you build this feature?" "Can I sell you this?" "Can I introduce you to this VC?" You just want to eat your meal or carry on with whatever you were in the middle of doing.Payal Kadakia: ClassPassFounder/ChairmanHeadquarters: New YorkFounded: 2013Age: 37BEST: One of the things you don't realize when you start a company is the impact you can have on employees' lives as the company grows. Some of the junior folks who joined the company in the early days have gone on to take top leadership roles as our company grew. I love giving people in their 20s an opportunity to lead and have new professional experiences. While it's easier to empower your employees when business is booming, what truly matters is how you continue to provide that support in the midst of a crisis. We are encouraging our team to exercise their entrepreneurial skills now more than ever.One of my favorite stories: We were in Singapore for ClassPass's launch there, and an employee at the table said he went to pick up his passport that past weekend. He lives in Montana, and this was his first trip outside of the U.S. I love hearing about employees having new experiences like that.WORST: Building a company takes time, and there's no blueprint to guide you. It requires a lot of iterating and pivoting. Our initial product didn't take off, and it took three years for us to get it right. We were originally a search engine for classes with no membership offering; you would book a class and pay full price for it. In that original iteration, there were weeks when nobody made a reservation on the site. It wasn't until we found our current model—a subscription and a community—when the magic happened.As an entrepreneur, that experience taught me never to get too comfortable, and with Covid-19 we've been forced to embrace discomfort in an entirely new way. We recognize that so many businesses around the world are struggling during this unprecedented time, and we are learning to adapt right alongside them.Neil Blumenthal: Warby ParkerCo-Founder/Co-CEOHeadquarters: New YorkFounded: 2010Age: 39BEST: I love that my work and life can be fully integrated. When you're passionate, as all entrepreneurs are about their business, it impacts every aspect of your life. Because my wife [Rachel Blumenthal, founder and CEO of Rockets of Awesome] is also an entrepreneur, it's great to have that shared commonality. Early this year, I was down in Miami to visit some of our stores and attend a conference. Rachel and my kids came down to meet me.One of the things the kids have accepted is that wherever we travel, there is probably a store, and we'll probably visit with the team there. It's interesting to see our 4-year-old and 8-year-old start to learn a little about retail and ask questions. "Why is the Warby sign this way?" "Why is every Warby Parker store different?" It's really exciting to talk with them about the things that I'm focused on as a business leader.WORST: There's nothing worse than having to let someone go. Work is important to all of us and often core to our identity. As the business leader, you are the final decision maker, and even though it's usually better for either the organisation or the individual, it's no fun. You worry: Was the hiring process as robust as it should have been? Was the role properly defined? Even when all of those things seem to have been done right, and you feel you've given someone every opportunity to succeed, it's really hard. I played sports in high school and have always been part of leadership programs, so I think I have the right level of expectation of how much being an entrepreneur is about people management. It's both the best and most challenging aspect of the job.– Ms. Spors is a writer in St. Louis Park, Minn. Email reports@wsj.com.

Successful entrepreneurs: What it’s REALLY like to grow a small business – The Wall Street Journal

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