The 4 Stages of Becoming An Entrepreneur

I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 8 years and during that time I’ve not only started 2 of my own businesses I also spent over a year building a support network for women business owners at a local non-profit. That adds up to hundreds of hours not only thinking about business building and growing, but also working with many other entrepreneurs on their businesses and with women who have ideas about businesses they would like to start. I’ve come to see that there are at least 4 stages to becoming an entrepreneur.

The 4 Stages To Becoming An Entrepreneur

1) The Spark:

Everything begins with the spark.  This is the moment you’re just living your life and then all of a sudden you have an idea.  Maybe you have a vision, or a dream.  Believe it or not, Ideas are the easy part.  Most everyone has an idea of something they would want to do or create if they felt like they had the time or the money.  Not all ideas are necessarily good ideas but creativity never runs out! Sparks are always available to us if we create the right environment for them.  If you get one spark, chances are you’re going to have more sparks. 

My spark began started when I had the idea to explore yoga teacher training. But it didn’t stop there, I continued to be curious, I wanted to keep learning more about yoga. I kept traveling down the yoga rabbit hole. I started entertaining the idea of teaching yoga and then somewhere along the line I realized Greensboro didn’t have a studio that taught the kind of yoga I wanted to take classes from. So it the idea “What if I open a studio that teaches the kind of yoga I want to take with the community I want to practice with”? started percolating in my head.  All of that developed over many years.  It was the result of my curiosity.  Curiosity will lead to sparks.  The further you let your curiosity take you the more sparks you will get. Not all of our ideas need to lead to businesses.  Ideas can stay ideas, (I also have wanted backyard chickens since college, but part of me just likes dreaming about the chickens). Our ideas can just be for fun, hobbies or sit in idea land, but this is where it all begins and sometimes where it ends. If the spark ends in the idea phase that’s fine, but if you’re looking for more sparks then begin with what you’re already curious about and explore!

2) Dreaming: 

When we can’t get the spark out of our head, we start dreaming about the spark with more intention, asking ourselves “What if”?  We might talk to our friends or partners about the spark.  We do more than roll the idea around in our heads here.  We actively start thinking about what would need to make our idea a reality.  We start to think about what we would need to do to bring the idea or dream to fruition. Here we’re day dreaming, talking about the idea, reading about our idea, or even meditating about our idea. Becareful not to skip this step. Don’t jump from spark right into planning. This is where we try the idea on for size in our lives through imagination. This can help you think through if you really want to sacrifice and work for this spark or idea.

I often talk to folks that tell me they are meditating and asking spirt or guides what to do with the idea or spark. That is a great action to engage in for this stage. But know that if that’s what you’re doing and where you are then you’re still in the dreaming and contemplation stage.

3) Planning:

Planning is where you’re ready to become a little more serious. You want to see if this is a viable idea, you’re ready to put skin in the game. You’re putting ideas to paper now.  In this stage of the game you might even be building out a business plan, researching costs, or competition.  This is the stage we can find ourselves lost or overwhelmed.  Planning is important.  Research is important, so it is good to put time and effort into this stage, but don’t get stuck here.  Nothing compares with getting out there and testing your idea.  The quicker you can test it the quicker and you can see if it will work as originally dreamed up, if it needs to be tweaked or if you need to scrap the idea entirely.  Good planning and research helps, but the quicker you can move into testing the plan the better.  Here you are interviewing potential customers a good rule of thumb is to interview 25-50 people in your target market.

4) Working the plan:

Here is where we take the planing, make the plunge and start trying to sell our idea. Here you’re serious, you’ve created a business and you are selling. While working the plan success comes from staying the course, having fortitude, dedication and perseverance.  Success comes from not jumping ship when a storm comes or the waters get rocky. 

This is the hardest part of the 4 stages .  It’s easy to come up with ideas, it’s easy to dream about what you want to do, and planning for a business can be intoxicating, but staying the course is difficult, tumultuous and often frightening.  This is the part of your course that you will often have the least amount of support from friends and family.  When the rubber meets the road and you have to sacrifice sleep, time with family and friends, when you have to get up day after day after day and work when it’s bumpy and hard.  Your friends and your family don’t want to see you going through something difficult, they want you to be safe and have an easy life.  But easy isn’t where growth, learning or development happens.  This is the stage of the journey where you have to dig deep to get to success.  But grit, perseverance and fortitude is what makes an entrepreneur. This journey is not right for everyone.

If you want to see if this journey is right for you, if you have an idea and are ready to start moving through the stages with a guide, then let’s talk. My coaching programs could be beneficial to you.

Schedule a Free 30 minute discovery call with me today.