Season 4 Introduction - The Serial Entrepreneur Season
A short introduction to Season 4 of The First 10 Podcast where I focus on serial entrepreneurs
Season 4 of The First 10 Podcast will focus on serial entrepreneurs, and this episode is a short message about why.
I want to shed a light on the people who have chosen the entrepreneurial path, again and again, to see what it was about them that enabled them to pivot their business, or drop a failing or undesirable business and pick up elsewhere, or spot new opportunities in a familiar space and launch products that found traction and fit a customer need. From the outside, the tenacity, drive, and imagination to start again can look like something reserved for the very few, and I hope that this season of the podcast will show you ways you can adopt a serial mindset.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Season 4 of the First 10 Podcast. I'm your host, Conor McCarthy, and I help people start and grow their businesses. I do that through joint ventures, collaborations, coaching, and online Workshops. In each episode of this podcast, I interview business builders about the early days of starting a business, about how they found their First 10 Customers and got off the ground so that you can learn what works, and what doesn’t. Check out my website conormccarthy.me for more details.
This episode is a little different from the usual intro’s. I want to dedicate this season to my dad, who passed away in August 2021 after a short illness.
My dad spent his working life as a bank manager, working for Bank of Ireland. He started in the equivalent of the mailroom and worked his way up to branch manager. While I never had a yearning to follow in his footsteps and work in a bank, I did enjoy hearing about his work and seeing the workings of a large institution from the inside. Of course, being a bank manager, people came to him looking for loans and other business supports. He would sometimes bring that work home, and tell me about any exciting applications that came across his desk, or people he met who were launching something that he felt had a chance at being successful. He talked a lot about the people behind the businesses - what they were like, what their experience was, how diligent they were in their application. During my summers off school, he would bring me in to do some small admin work in the bank, and I would sometimes meet these entrepreneurs and hear about their thing. Dad would explain their business and balance sheets to me, and what he looked out for as they applied for a loan. Sometimes, I would get to see their built ideas if they had a prototype. My dad helped a lot of businesses get off the ground, through lending, advice, and his connections. He really enjoyed helping people start and grow their business, be they early technology companies in the ’90s, or simple bricks-and-mortar businesses.
Some of that enjoyment of turning ideas into reality rubbed off on me, as I started my own businesses, or helped others build theirs. I have been able to see how much work goes into building a business of any size and to spot places where I might be able to support. The successes, the failures, the sprints, the rests, the relationships, the innovation - it’s all part of the game of trying to create real value in the world.
Going forward, as well as the usual questions, I'll be asking my guests about the people who made a difference in starting or growing their business. Often it’s the people we meet, and not the things we build, that help create success. And when all is said and done, it’s the relationships that stick.
As I reflected on the podcast recently, I realised how much it’s really about finding the stories about breaking free of gravity as we create the new, or grow into new spaces. That gravity might be internal to us, or something about the market we are entering, or be composed of the many things that get a business going. Getting your first customers is one of the many inflection points on the road to success, and as they say “Getting started is half the battle”, so my job here is to pay more attention to just that.
So, this season is dedicated to my dad, who loved to help others succeed, and who we all miss.
In Season 4, I'll be talking to serial entrepreneurs, people who have created multiple viable businesses. I chose this theme for a few reasons.
First, many people who listen to this podcast are on their first business as a freelancer, bootstrapper or entrepreneur. And it's entirely possible that that one business will be your “forever business” but chances are, it will take you places you never would have imagined. In my own case, I went from being an entrepreneur to being a freelancer to bootstrapping and now I'm back to entrepreneurship again. If you seek to be self-employed, you may wear one or all of these hats in your work life, and hearing from people who start and start again is hugely helpful.
Secondly, businesses change, the market changes, and people change. Some businesses grow to a point where the founder can hand off the day-to-day operations to someone else and move on to other projects. Some businesses open your eyes to other opportunities in the space and sprout yet more businesses. And of course, some businesses just don't make it. Seeing the lifecycle of an enterprise will shed light on some tips and tricks no matter where you are starting from.
Lastly, I want to shed a light on the people who have chosen the entrepreneurial path, again and again, to see what it was about them that enabled them to pivot their business, or drop a failing or undesirable business and pick up elsewhere, or spot new opportunities in a familiar space and launch products that found traction and fit a customer need. From the outside, the tenacity, drive, and imagination to start again can look like something reserved for the very few, and I hope that this season of the podcast will show you ways you can adopt a serial mindset.
And of course, creating successful businesses usually means there have been some failures along the path too, and the lessons from those are also worth diving into.
I hope you enjoy this season. The guests I have coming up are fantastic, and I can’t wait to share our conversations.
If you enjoy the show, I have a small favor to ask. I’d really appreciate if you’d take 2 minutes to jump on iTunes and leave a review of the First 10 podcast... it’s more valuable than you would realize and it’ll help me to continue to grow the podcast and get amazing guests like I have had and continue to find. Also, I'll be designing and posting some of the reviews on my social media channels so you might see your name in lights!
Ok, thanks for being here, and do reach out if you're building a business.
