When Uncertainty Feels Overwhelming
Things seem highly uncertain right now.
With news breaking every hour, the entire world is following numbers going up or down. The anxiety feels crippling. Businesses are pressured to make hard decisions. These times are tough, but here is a reminder to all the business owners: tough times build resilience. Many successful companies spend years building foundations before growth becomes visible, much like startups that grow like bamboo.
The danger is real, but fear is a choice.
For founders, fear often appears in the form of self-doubt, making it important to recognize and overcome imposter syndrome.
Why a Founder Mindset Focuses on Opportunity
Being a bootstrapped team, we naturally protect ourselves against having our resources of time and money being spread too thin. This can push you into a scarcity minded approach of cutting all costs and hunkering down.
This past weekend, we did an exercise to be on the same page about the risks and rewards of the business. We wanted to find an abundance mindset and envision the opportunities of what version of ourselves we wanted to see coming out of this tough time. How do we want to be more disciplined or what areas of the product do we want customers to fall in love with?
Questions That Help Founders Think More Clearly
We asked ourselves a few questions:
- What are our personal and business goals in the next 12-24 months?
- What are sure ways for our company to fail? How do we avoid that?
- What does the future of our market look like? What are customers asking for?
- What is the worst reputation we can have as a company? How do we avoid that?
Asking difficult questions early can help entrepreneurs avoid many of the common startup mistakes that prevent long-term success.
Going through this exercise allowed us to align as co-founders about what's important to us and what we want out of the business. Developing a strong founder mindset helped us focus on long-term opportunities instead of short-term uncertainty. It has also helped us think more clearly and set the right goals for the coming months.
Important note: Listening closely to customer needs is a habit shared by many successful teams featured in our customer stories. See how to get a clear feedback with Pastel.
