Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Hello SOTGC community,
This is my 5th post for SOTGC and so far we have walked through moving from executive to entrepreneur, assessing your e-ship skills, and preparing your family, your boss and yourself for your e-ship journey. Now it’s time to get down to business – your business.
In today’s post you’ll get an overview of the 6 stages of entrepreneurship from Patti Fletcher, CEO of PSDNetwork, LLC.
Turn Your Great Idea Into A Real Business: the 6 stages of e-ship
Raise your hand if you keep a list of great business ideas on your iPhone. I’m raising my hand and I bet you are too. How can we move the things on that list from ideas to actual business plans?
To answer that question I went to a woman who for 10 yearshas been interviewing, researching, working side by side with and is now an entrepreneur herself – Patti Fletcher, CEO of PSDNetwork, LLC.
Heather Boggini: Patti, let’s start with a scenario: a woman has what she thinks is a great idea and thinks she can make money from it. But she doesn’t know how to get the business off the ground and then grow it. Where is the roadmap or manual that shows her how to accomplish that?
Patti Fletcher: I would love to say there is a step-by-step plan to follow, but unfortunately there is not. And, to top it off, women tend to experience entrepreneurship uniquely. What I can tell you is that there are typical milestones that every entrepreneur leads her business and her career through that tend to take place through 5 stages.
Heather: what are those 5 stages? And explain them using language the aspiring entrepreneur can appreciate, not just the experienced entrepreneur.
Patti: Hey! Entrepreneurs are people too. But, you are right, like with any niche grouping, entrepreneurs tend to develop their own language. The big milestones every entrepreneur should be prepared for are:
1. opportunity discovery (I’ve got a great idea!)
2. commercialization (I’m validating and pivoting my idea)
3. startup (my idea is now ready for Startup)
4. growth (startup going well. I’m ready to grow my business)
5. exit (time to Exit this business and start my next big thing
Because women experience entrepreneurship differently than men, there is a sixth stage women tend to experience that men do not have as a separate stage. And, this sixth stage is not about the business at all, it’s about the leader:
6. leadership (I have run my business, maybe I have exited, but now what? A board position? Another start-up? An executive job with the company who acquired my start-up? None or all of the above?)
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we talk about how to manage these milestones. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
