From reluctance to entrepreneurship: my personal journey
Story time: entrepreneurship scared the crap out of me, yet, I love it now
Hi! I’m Viktoria, your 10-min a week business partner. I send you something weekly to help you figure out entrepreneurship without losing your mind.
So, entrepreneurship got me.
I want to share this story because there's a misconception that entrepreneurs are a kind of special type of human being, that they just happen to be good at building businesses. I don't think that’s entirely true, and I will tell you why using my personal story.
Read to the end and the comment with your own journey, I would love to read you!
My family immigrated to Canada when I was a little child, 4 years old to be precise, and this is where my entrepreneurship journey begins, even though I did not know it then. Immigration is a form of entrepreneurship, it is entrepreneurial to decide to take a leap of faith, overcome your fears and move to a different country. So, it's of no surprise that my dad got the entrepreneurship bug when he got to Canada. As most immigrants in a new country, he started off working in low paying jobs, however, very quickly realized it will not be enough to make ends meet, so he decided to do something else. He started building businesses. Some were kind of ish successful, however, he was unable to grow them, or more like they were not achieving his dream to find a “get rich scheme” so he kept jumping from one business to another. Endlessly, and without much financial success.
Growing up watching these failed businesses over and over again, which was also destroying our family, as we were going into debt, not out of it, I had decided business was not for me.
Entrepreneurship and anything about it scared the crap out of me.
Ironically, I got a bachelor’s degree in business, maybe to overcome the trauma, not sure. As I studied, I watched many of my classmates launch startups, some very successful to this day, and I applaud them for that. However, I was not like that, I was terrified of it, and found it horrible, because I truly believed it would ruin my life, and I would be financially broke. As I was graduating, I told myself to look for a stable job, so obviously I started my career in the corporate world.
All went well, I was following the plan, until I decided I really wanted to work in social impact and could not for the life of me find any job opportunities in the field even with a prestigious degree and work experience. Then, I found a mentor in the field, hoping it would open some career perspectives. However, the unexpected happened, I started working on contracts, in other terms freelancing or working for myself. I was slowly becoming an entrepreneur….
At first, I took two website design contracts. Then, supporting an artist with marketing and distribution. My logic here was job = money = sweet deal. I did not identify as an entrepreneur, my business had no name, no website and I did not even talk about myself like that.
This was not part of the plan, it all just happened as I was getting paid work, with cool people on cool projects and surely, I eventually started identifying as a consultant.
Initially, I focused on arts organizations and artists and then slowly opening my doors to tourism and entrepreneurship as an industry. Then, after some years floating around, I decided I wanted to do a master level's degree. I signed up but didn't finish it though, as it was not giving me what I needed, so instead I pivoted and started a startup in the social impact space. Pitched at two incubators, got selected, which shocked me because I was the only nonprofit and everyone else was more or less in tech. This gave me a lot of confidence, as apparently my idea wasn't that bad compared to the rest. This was my entry into the startup world.
Around this time, I had healed my relationship with entrepreneurship and even realized that I was doing entrepreneurial things before without even knowing it: I had attempted to start a blog and attempted to be a figuring skating coach.
I had become an entrepreneur, even though I was set in my head that I would never do that. I like stability, yes, but it hit me that I love brainstorming, I love creating impact for others and most of all seeing that whatever I was putting in, there was an output, an output that I could see and control, and it was beneficial to the end user.
Am I stopping at consulting? nope.
Though, that should not be surprising, when you figure out what entrepreneurship means to you and how you can leverage it in your life, you keep naturally doing more of it. Currently, I am set on building my brand as a small business consultant which includes this newsletter but also as a fractional social impact manager. I truly believe that the future of careers is some sort of skill-based marketplace where we will be charging a fee for our skills, without building a career in just one area.
In the future, I hope to buy a local brick and mortar business and revamp it.
This story is to showcase that everyone’s entrepreneurship journey is different because you can be an entrepreneur by accident like me. For others, entrepreneurship will be a way to attain financial freedom because maybe their current job is not providing them the income they need to survive. For others, it's a question of mental health, so they can instead put to use their passions, hobbies, skills. For some, it will be a freelancing or part-time activity. You do not need to go all-in to be an entrepreneur, it is even proven that those that build businesses while working full-time tend to be more successful long term. Why? Because they are able to pay the bills while doing it. If you are unable to meet your essential needs, you will not be able to build any business, as you will be focused on survival.
A lot of people hesitate to take on entrepreneurial initiatives business or personal because, well, they're scared of failing. I was to, clearly! We are scared of not making money. We are scared that, we will put all this effort, nothing's going to come out of it. What I learned over the years, is to not look at it as a startup, instead, think of it this is an activity, something small, just like going to the gym or having coffee with a friend.
Have an initial plan, have a big vision, small goals and be excited to learn in the process.
Having a big vision is key, as it is your driving force for all your tiny actions today. The vision does not need to happen today or even in ten years, and it might actually never happen at all, as it will transform during your journey, and that is so beautiful.