World Tour 2018: Ever Wondered How Startups Differ Around the World?
Part of the “Entrepreneurship Unplugged” Blog Series: Blog 1
I’m going to find out… 🌎 ✈️ 🎉
Five years ago, almost to the day, I started a new chapter of my life by becoming an entrepreneur. A few months earlier, still stuck in my corporate job as a management consultant, I decided to set aside 60% of my monthly salary to bootstrap my startup. Putting aside this significant amount was only possible because I knew that my corporate job was nothing but a temporary solution. It’s difficult to convey the amount of desperation and fear I felt being stuck in a job that I hated without having a clear and tangible path out of my misery. As I thought more about it and started transitioning out of my corporate job, it felt as though I was leaving my safe and highly paid position for what I could have only described at the time as complete uncertainty. Nonetheless, I had a romantic idea of a life driven by passion and commitment. My goal was to make a little dent in the universe.
While working at the Harvard Business School on better understanding promotional patterns of c-suite position holders in public and private hospitals in mid-2012, I came across the whole concept of entrepreneurship for the first time at the Harvard Innovation Lab. The first public events I attended focused on topics such as how to choose the right legal entity for your business or how to find the right co-founder. At the time, essentially clueless in the field, I was grateful for any piece of advice or information I could get. This feeling of not knowing what exactly to do when moving away from the safe harbor of academia was frightening. No longer being able to hide behind titles and positions, such as my medical degree or a public health master’s degree from Johns Hopkins, taught me a tough and important lesson. Becoming an entrepreneur was about reinventing and proving myself again in an entirely new field. I must, of course, give credit to the innovation lab for opening my eyes to a new way of life called “Entrepreneurship”.
FIVE YEARS IN: WHAT’S NEXT?
Fast forward, five years later, our flagship product Doctor in Your Pocket has expanded to 180+ cities globally and partnered with the likes of HomeAway and others. With exposure and features on every major news outlet, many awards and recognitions (such as finalist for the Entrepreneur of the Year award by Ernst & Young) under my belt, and the early stages of grey hair, I took time to reflect on my still young journey as an entrepreneur to ask this one question: what’s next? 😅
During my winter break in Silicon Valley, of all places I could have visited 😀, it became clear to me that 2018 must be different! Over the years, I’ve been extremely privileged to have gained access to a handful of very successful and well-renowned global entrepreneurs that have already done what I’m in the process of accomplishing: they’ve already made their dent. I can’t stress enough the importance of access to the right, knowledgeable, brilliant entrepreneurs whose advice I consider to be “liquid gold”.
I plan to make blogging a regular occurance in my life now, and features such as “How to Bootstrap your Company While Still Employed” and “Starting Up: How to Hire your First Key People” will be the types of topics I’ll be reflecting on over the next few months. I want to grow a community of young entrepreneurs and other business-savvy individuals in hopes of sharing what I learned in my startup experience. With my insights laid out fully here on the blog, it is my hope that readers can take from my key lessons to guide them throughout their journey.
In reflecting on my experience over the past five years, I have realized that my sheer lack of knowledge in all aspects of entrepreneurship made my experience a steep learning curve. Starting out as a young and inexperienced entrepreneur, one of the most difficult challenges is to cut through the noise of 99% of the people or companies who approach you. They are offering cheap and biased advice to either sell you services and products that you don’t need or simply trying to boost their user base. For me, I understood very little about topics such as fundraising, accounting, sales and business development, digital marketing; you name it. I had no knowledge or experience upon which to make informed decisions like I was used to in medicine. Honestly, most of my early decisions were more intuitive than anything else!
So, my intention with the blog series is to offer entrepreneurs a resource to learn from my successful moments, and more importantly, my mistakes.
AN ENTREPRENEURIAL WORLD TOUR
That’s not all: in looking forward to 2018, I’ve chosen this year to be the year I give back to the global entrepreneurial community as well. I took several mentorship roles with venture capital firms, Techstars, and will be travelling to major startup hubs worldwide. Unlike many speakers I came across in my career, “Entrepreneurship Unplugged” workshops have the sole purpose of addressing questions and business needs of young and aspiring entrepreneurs. The foundation upon which these workshops will be based is tri-fold: to be honest, to be direct, and to be experience-driven.
The response rate from the owners and operators of the startup hubs has been phenomenal. After the first round of planned events, I’m truly impressed by the support of the global startup community as they organize events and promote these workshops to their peers and community. My tour will start today in Dubai, followed by many other locations in the Middle East. This new chapter in my life will be shared through Twitter, LinkedIn, blog posts, and an upcoming YouTube channel with daily updates and weekly reflections.
I’m thrilled to travel around the world again! Especially with such a special and unique goal at the heart of it all: helping young and aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their business dreams, learn more about the economic and cultural implications on startup ecosystems, and gain knowledge about the maturity level of global startup hubs.
I hope that all of you who read this blog will support and follow me on my journey in 2018. I would love to hear from you with suggestions regarding startup hubs that I should visit, companies to connect with, or startup programs I should be aware of. Please also feel free to contact me with any mentorship requests, I’d be happy to get in touch.
I look forward to your comments, likes and other ways of engagement 🙏
Marcel
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