The Death of a Dream or the Birth of One?
“In my own business, I get so overwhelmed I freeze. Here, things don’t feel like such a big deal. I get so much done.”
“Just come answer the phones for two weeks,” she said. “We’re desperate.”
The founder agreed. A two-week favor for a friend to get her and her company out of a pinch. Besides, the extra cash and the 9am-noon structure would give the founder a sense of stability that would free him up to work on his own nascent (dare he admit, struggling?) business. Working for yourself, he’s realized, isn’t always what it’s talked up to be.
Two weeks turn into four, turn into eight. Now it’s been six months and he’s found himself loving a job he never knew he wanted.
Partly, it’s the encouragement. The team is so positive. He sees it in the little things — the small turns of phrase the team uses when interacting with each other. “I trust your judgment” is one of them. “Which of these retargeting ads do you think we should go with?” I trust your judgment. What should the process be for onboarding new partners? I trust your judgment. Working on his own business, that lack of direction felt overwhelming. Here, it felt empowering. When he hired and trained an assistant two months into the job, the assistant asked how he should organize something. “I trust your judgment,” the founder said.
Everything isn’t perfect. The team struggles to communicate, and — as with any early-stage company — the goals change often. But no one takes themselves too seriously. They take responsibility for their own mistakes, and go out of their way to cover for each other.
One day, his friend asks him to lunch. “I want you to think about closing your business and coming to work with us full time,” she says.
The opportunities with his business have never been greater, but he’s afraid that if he leaves this environment his head will start swimming with all the challenges and isolation that come from being at the top.
So, how does it end?
Have you been here? What happened? You’re a friend of the founder. You’ve watched him struggle on his own, come alive at this new job, and, recently, begin to make real strides with his own business. Tell him your story to help him make sense of his own.
Want to join the conversation? Comment or click here to send us your response. We’ll use your stories to co-create the ending of this episode.
Clues for finding a way out…
About the Founder Chronicles
This is the second episode of The Founder Chronicles, a choose-your-own-adventure journey into the chaos and triumph of starting something.
We release stories (“episodes”) of a team facing a challenge or puzzle. The episodes are purposely left unfinished; readers have the chance to share their stories to help us finish them. Each episode will have a list of tools or resources that might give clues for a way out. We bring together your responses to co-create a “way out” of the puzzle and send it out the following week.
