The tipping point to entrepreneurship
I’ve been in the fortunate position of being surrounded by entrepreneurs for the last decade. I’ve started a few businesses myself with both stunning (short-lived) results and spectacularly epic losses. But it’s not about me today. It’s about Them. Their caffeine-coated energy, FTW mindset and insane problem-solving skills have enthralled me for years.
We’re talking about hundreds of stories. And my favourite part of their story is ‘the tipping point’ — that awesome, tangible, remarkable point in time just before one takes the final leap into being a startup.
A ballerina’s tipping point:
Find something (else) you can love 100 per cent
The beautiful Lisa Suswain trained at The Royal Ballet and performed with Vienna Festival Ballet.
I met her years and years after this. Hearing her recount her ballet days with an almost singsong voice, it was very easy for me to imagine how she would plie and pirouette in Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker around the world. She spoke elegantly about how she trained a punishing six days a week from 7.30 am until 11 pm to be the best. By 16 she was dancing for the Royal Ballet School and worked for both London City Ballet and Vienna Festival Ballet.
Tragically, an injury halted Lisa’s ballet career prematurely. She did a few office jobs after that phase, cried lots at the end of the day. The ‘almighty crack’ that audibly came from torn ligaments and tendons from that tragic day cracked the universe of living the dream.
The end of one passion made way for another. Lisa explains: “One night I was very unhappy and was trying to decide what to do. Dancing was my world. My dog was licking my hand under the table and the answer was right there… This is what I want to do; I love ballet, but I have also always loved dogs. I could bring together other people like me and create a company run by dog lovers who provide a home haven for dogs, while their owners are away on holiday.”
“It was an idea that was very different from what was out there. Even if some people in the early days, my bank manager included, gave me this look that said: ‘emotional woman, loves pooches’; or told me ‘dogs don’t make money’, I just did it.”
It’s arguable whether it was personal tragedy or the dog-licking moment
that was her tipping point; but in the end Lisa just had to ask herself what she really loved apart from ballet. She is the founder and MD of Wagging Tails, a multi-award winning franchise company with seven franchised branches and 92% increase in booking year on year.
A toy designer’s tipping point:
Transferable skills from full-time employment to a creative startup
Imagine having nearly two decades of experience in the design industry; of wanting to be a toy designer and one day finding yourself designing the layouts for top toy manufacturers’ cards. Fun? Why of course! But what was next from there?
Marco Crosta is possibly one of my favourite half-Italian full-on-crazy graphic artists in the world. He was stuck in that proverbial what’s-the-next-step mode for years and in 2013, he took That Step. He is now creative director and head honcho of Marco Coco, a design agency specialising in toy branding design.
Marco left agency employment and set up his own thing after years of working with toy branding legends Lego and Mattel. His ‘tipping point’ was more of a transition although he shares that there was one defining moment:
“One day, I was designing business cards for an aging fridge magnate who had ruthlessly acquired a toy company I was working in-house for, insisting that all the font type needed to be at least 12pt so he could read it. Whilst designing it in braille was an interesting consideration I realised I needed to have more control over what, and more importantly for whom I was designing for.”
“All of a sudden I was consumed by this feeling of how much I would hate to imagine the sparks of ingenuity that have been slowly smothered under a PC monitor. No matter what, we all deserve to enjoy the work we do and the only thing keeping anyone from this is the fear of change. It was always a daunting prospect going out on my own but after only six months the only regret is that I didn’t do this much, much sooner.”
Marco fought a lot of age-old fears: leaving a place he loved, changing a life he loved, but knew there was something better for him. He and others I’ve met share a similar sentiment: sometimes you just know it’s the right thing to do, and perhaps what’s left to do is formulate your next steps forward and make that leap.
Your tipping point
Although each journey is unique, the steps to every entrepreneurial leap can be remarkably similar:
- Find something you are absolutely passionate about.
- Do the research and find a gap in your chosen market.
- Make a business plan.
- Seek the partners and suppliers who understand start-ups.
- Get the funding and mentoring that’s right for you.
- Spread the word, go social.
- Sell it.
A version of this blog was originally published at Global Entrepreneurship Week’s Blog and www.connector.barclays.co.uk.
