away with:
•Proven ideas for your company to achieve rapid growth
•Life-changing directions to follow as a new entrepreneur
•Awareness of how you can either inhibit or energize your business goals
•A clear path to navigate past the pitfalls standing between you and success
You’ll also find this book includes links to many online resources, calculators, infographics, and tools for the “Overcoming the Pitfalls” sections at the end of each chapter to help you self-assess and move your business forward. Some principles relate to the business, and many relate directly to you as the entrepreneur. And by the way, if you’re reading this well above your mid-twenties and think it may be too late to start your entrepreneurial journey, take heart. According to the Wharton Knowledge Group, you’ll enjoy some advantages that come with age and experience.1 It’s both never too early and never too late to answer the call and take this journey.
So, get ready to dig in and go deep as an entrepreneur—not unlike digging in and going deep with that Chicago pizza. Because it’s one thing to have a world-class offering, and quite another to build the world-class business around it. Pull up a chair, take a seat at the table, grab a slice, and let’s get to it.
“Man conquers the world by conquering himself.”
—Zeno of Citium
I awoke at four thirty with the grid pattern of my keyboard imprinted on the side of my face. Sleep-deprived and groggy, I was the only one left in the office. The keyboard had become my unintentional pillow repeatedly for nearly three days, and I found myself in a kind of bleary-eyed delirium. I wanted to sleep, but there was too much work to do.
I’d started my new company to find freedom, wealth, and excitement, but instead I found myself in a prison of my own making. My entrepreneurial dream had been marked by insane work hours, sleepless nights, no after-hours teammates, grueling deadlines, and difficult clients. I often wished I had more time for my family, church callings, writing and playing music, and pushing harder on triathlons.
I’d traded a really great boss at Ancestry.com for a crack-the-whip, ruthless tyrant: me! I’d also exchanged normal work hours, stable cash flow, and time with my family for marathon work sessions away from home, crazy amounts of stress, and erratic cash flow. This prison of my own making—my personal gilded cage—held a single sign over the barred door which read, “Entrepreneurship.”
I pushed through that morning to finish the project on time, staying focused on the usual high quality it demanded.
From the outside, my business looked like it was succeeding. I’d received the “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from the Chamber of Commerce and was listed as one of the “40 under 40” taking advantage of the fast-growing economy in the Silicon Slopes (a technology hub at the base of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah). I had been written up in magazines like Utah Business and Business Q and was recognized as one of the leading interactive website and multimedia developers in the world. A professional international certification ranked me second in the world in Adobe Flash. All the trappings of success, right? Turns out, not so much.
How did I get here?
I didn’t have the answer that morning, and it took several years and more than one painful lesson (including losing my first company to a corporate coup) to help me see how I’d trapped myself despite all my talents, passions, and work ethic. Once I’d lost the company, I pushed the reset button and reevaluated my world view. I changed my paradigms and took a hard look at my professional life from a more objective point of view.
That’s when the epiphany came. I’d been caught in a paradox—the Entrepreneur’s Paradox, to be more precise. In short, I was good at what I did—really good. But this was the reason my business wasn’t succeeding.
Think about it for a moment. If you’re highly skilled at something, people view you as an expert and want your hands-on efforts. Clients see you and not the business as the most expedient path to that “magic” you sold them in the first place. My clients were no different. They wanted me, Curtis. They weren’t really interested in the services of my business. I had employees, tools, and a few systems in place, but our corporate clients wanted me, personally, to do the work. After all, I had been the one doing the work for other clients in the past. As a young and inexperienced entrepreneur, I had made the mistake of assuming that “doing the work” and “growing the business” were the same thing. But they are as different as night and day.
With this new (and hard-won) insight, I realized that, if I wanted to succeed in business, I had to stop being the sole expert, the sought-after specialist, the best in the world. I had to give up part of my identity.
The Entrepreneur’s Paradox applies not only to me, but also to countless others who attempt the leap from world-class expert and specialist to business owner. You simply can’t be the best in the world at your craft while being best in the world at running a business. As the saying goes, “No man can serve two masters.” And that’s exactly what I, and most entrepreneurs, have tried to do.
Our personal passions are often at the heart of a new business venture. One of my friends is a chocolatier because of his love for chocolate. Another started a travel expedition company because she loves to travel and has a true talent for immersing people in unique cultural experiences. Another friend started a video game company because of his love and talent for gaming. Still another started a mobile app company because he has a passion for clean design and journaling and wanted to help people around the world tell their stories. Passion is great fodder for the entrepreneurial engine.
In the years between that first business epiphany and the writing of this book, I’ve coached many passionate entrepreneurs. Without fail, they all talk about how unique their business is—that they have the secret sauce that will differentiate and propel them past their competitors. And it’s often true. But what tends to always be true is the timeline these entrepreneurs will go through. Their stories are almost always the same and move in predictable chapters and verses.
All entrepreneurs start somewhere else in life. They usually start at an established company. Most get a little taste of entrepreneurship when they take a small break from the “normal” world. Instead of waking up each day to go to the same office and see the same boss and do the same thing day in and day out, they get a taste of something new and exciting, tapping into their skills and being rewarded emotionally and monetarily. It’s like taking a vacation to a tropical island where breaking waves offer adventure and pristine white sand beaches and which seems like a little piece of heaven. It’s exhilarating because it represents many of the things we enjoy and are passionate about. It comes with a rush of new experiences and we are often praised for our accomplishments there, because we are typically very skilled at what we do. Most will occasionally jump to the island for a fleeting moment of thrilling experiences and then bounce back from this “special” world to the ordinary, safe, and comfortable world (i.e., our day jobs). In today’s vernacular, this is often called freelancing, moonlighting, or even having a “side hustle.” Yet, we still feel the pull of this island and can’t wait to go back.
For others, this desire becomes so strong we leave the comfort of the ordinary world permanently—selling our homes on the mainland and moving to the island! At first, it’s a paradise. We wake up whenever it feels nice, set our schedule according to what suits us best, and have fun doing what we love. This is the life! And people really appreciate the artistry with which we build our sandcastles, fish for food, and make the most delicious coconut drinks (i.e., the products or services we offer). Even better, the demand for our products grows.
Then, one day, as we are sitting on our beach chair, we hear a rustle in the vegetation from behind. We turn to catch sight of an alligator creeping out of the jungle and