Losing Sight of “Why” as a Solo Founder
A personal story of discovering life goals slipping away and getting back on track.
It was a warm, sunny morning in early March. I was sitting outside sipping coffee in the garden of a San Diego Airbnb. As a Chicago resident, I welcomed a break from the harsh climate. Still, I wasn’t experiencing the serenity such beautiful surroundings usually provided me. I was feeling a growing sense of discontentment. Something was off, and I needed to identify and fix it. I revisited the past few years in search of answers.
I had taken a circuitous route to becoming the solo founder of Convey Strategy. Nearly four years earlier, I left a secure corporate job to follow my startup dreams. I learned a lot from pursuing some startup concepts that proved unviable. The most impactful, Solo Founders Unite, taught me that a simple, approachable business strategy could keep entrepreneurs focused on high-level goals. Convey Strategy was born.
As I contemplated my path that morning, I was well into recruiting early customers for Convey. It was hard. I was putting in long hours, but the users only trickled in. If I was lucky, I could soon enjoy monthly revenue totaling tens of dollars. How long would it take to grow that into a useful number? Would I ever earn a salary? Why did I decide to be a startup founder!?
Why indeed. It was the key question. I found it ironic I had built Convey to keep people focused on goals, yet my own slipped from my grasp. I needed to take stock of them. Why did I leave my corporate job?
- Full control of my career and financial destiny.
- A desire for meaning rather than being a corporate drone.
- The freedom to pursue my interests and work when, where, and how I wanted.
How was I doing?
- Control of career: Check
- Control of financial destiny: Check, but decidedly flatlined
- Meaningfulness: Not yet
- Freedom and lack of corporate dronedom: Check
It seemed like I was doing alright, but something was still missing.
My husband and I had lost track of how many times we vacationed in San Diego. We planned to move there from Chicago, so were spending as much time as possible getting familiar with the city. When I left my job, I expected to earn enough within two years to move. But there we were, nearly four years later, visiting again but no closer to moving. There was the goal that slipped!
I’ve always believed people should work to live, not live to work. A job is a means to an end; we need money to buy life’s necessities and to do the things that have personal meaning. It’s great if our work fulfills us, but life comes first.
As solo founders, we form uniquely personal connections to our businesses. Our companies may start to feel like extensions of ourselves.
We can become so absorbed that we fall into a routine of focusing only on low-level work. That routine can distract us from our higher-level goals. With nobody else to remind us of these, we may get stuck in an unfulfilling solo founder bubble.
It was just such a bubble causing stress during my vacation. I vowed to remember the reasons I set out on my own and to make adjustments accordingly.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve made those changes. I rebranded Convey Strategy as Strategy Mountain, and plan to continue growing it, although not as a primary income source anytime soon. Instead, I decided to use my technology and business skills to launch a software consulting service: Convey Software Works. I’ll still have everything that motivated my startup leap, but with an income for doing the things I care about — the whole reason for working at all.
As I pursue this reimagined journey, I’ll keep a closer eye on my goals to avoid losing track of them again. I’ll also keep an eye on my sunscreen supply since, if all goes well, I’ll soon be living in a sunnier climate!
