Today some perspective from the mentors at one of my 7×7 Mentoring Salons. The topic was staring up and staring over…when you have an idea, a passion project…at what point do you quit your job to pursue it full time and how do you know you are up for it?
If you’re giving a 120% to what you’re doing, then you can run your own company.
Whatever job I was in, I was always giving 120%. And I was always #2. There was always a boss that I reported to but I did all the work. I treated every job as if it was my own company. It accelerates your understanding of how to run a company and it’s great preparation. If you have that attitude about what you do, then you can run your own company. Sometimes it takes something to push you over that mental block to say, “I can be the #1. I don’t need a figurehead to tell me what to do.” There are questions you should ask yourself. Are you capable yourself? Do you have confidence in yourself? What’s your skill set? What type of environment do you want to be in? Does your current purpose marry your passion? I realize the answers to the questions and I left Wall Street. Though I’m still kind of there because I’m still working there through social impact.” – CEO, social good investment firm
If you are passionate enough about it to work all your weekends and all your evenings on it and you’ve answered every hypothesis question that you can answer, then it’s probably time to make that switch.
You’re not making that decision forever. You’re making the decision for today. I mean, if you have the idea and are working on it in your spare time you are already pursuing multiple things. Just because you’re doing one thing that’s your “day job” doesn’t mean that you can’t work with someone — an advisor, a potential partner — in the evening on your passion. Every woman here who is starting a company needs some help. Make connections outside of work.” – entrepreneur and producer
At what point do have no social life and there are still have not enough hours in the day to do your primary job and your secondary passion project that you’re trying to get off the ground?
How much lead-time are you giving yourself to allow the passion-project to fail and iterate on it? And how much traction, like, real viable traction from the communities that are important do you have? Lead-time and buy in are super important. Don’t quit until you have to. Then when you do and a year later you realize, “I’m broke” you can always go back. So I would say if you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to take the risks. It’s never going be perfect. But the nice thing is you can always return.” – angel investor