You are not alone

This week (October 9-16) is startup week here in the Twin Cities. It is a time when you can find entrepreneurs, from all walks of life throughout various corners of the metro area, coming together to learn from and celebrate each other. There is something on the agenda for almost everybody.

Meanwhile, startup weeks have happened, are happening, or are otherwise scheduled to happen all over the country (see some links below). It’s a powerful reminder to all entrepreneurs that you are not alone in your journey. To be a successful founder, you need to have a network of mentors, so find ways to reach out to and embrace your local founder community, whether it be at a startup week gathering or otherwise.

One awesome example of this in action is Josh Fedie at SalesReach, a Minneapolis-based startup that has developed a system to help sales teams deliver marketing-approved content to sales prospects at the right time (what he calls “Smarketing”). In addition to putting in hours to run his business, Josh has committed significant hours building a strong following for his podcast, The Founders Mentality, which consists of casual, conversational interviews with a plethora of successful founders. He has become one of my favorite LinkedIn profiles to follow because, as a startup attorney who works with founders nearly every day, I find that the interviews offer invaluable insight into all sorts of hot topics for founders and help me better understand the founder “mentality” so that I can better serve my clients.

For Josh and the founders who follow it, the podcast serves as free mentoring. And that’s my point in all of this. Being a founder is hard work. It is easy to get so wrapped up in building your own business that you might overlook the fact that there are others around you who could offer great advice or simply listen to your grievances or pat you on the back. 

So get out there, build your network, follow Josh’s podcast, go to a startup week gathering, and find good mentors. You will have a lot more fun building your business.

As promised above (thanks to those of you who read the intervening text to get this far), below are a few links to startup week events.

https://startupweek.co (through Techstars)

https://twincitiesstartupweek.com

https://www.2020startups.nyc