Ugh! You're an Entrepreneur! Now What?!

Did you attend an inspiring workshop or listen to some startup podcast or read some finance book or watch Shark Tank or read a book about Steve Jobs and now you feel inspired, understood and generally aroused? You may just be a natural-born entrepreneur! Even if you don’t own a savings account you’ve read somewhere that entrepreneurship is a mindset. Now you feel like you could just bite your own arm off out of sheer excitement and frustration that everyone around can’t possibly relate to your entrepreneurial spirt! FUCK!

Here is how to cope:

1. Find your “tribe.” No, don’t say “like-minded friends.” Your TRIBE. Have you found them? Not sure? Then you haven’t found your tribe. Find them.
2. Have any special skills? Call those skills “in your wheelhouse” because it shows you love baseball but are also serious. Do you NOT have any special skills? Doesn’t matter. The goal here is to find your tribe with all the right skills so you can achieve your dream of making this world a little better with an app that allows people to talk to a robot chef for the small price of $99 a year. Hello? Operator? Did I hear someone say 1–800-YOU’RE-A-GENIUS?!
3. Are you at work and feeling like you need some direction for the day? Tell everyone that it’s time for a “huddle” to show that you watch football and are thinking about the future of the company. You’re all about having all hands on deck but only if everyone does exactly as you say. You’re in charge.
4. Do not let anybody fucking interrupt you. Did you just fucking interrupt me?
5. Hey vagina boss, yes you, with the vagina. You are a Boss Lady, Boss Babe, Boss Bitch, Female Entrepreneur, Momtrepreneur, or just a Wantrepreneur so everyone knows you don’t actually have what it takes to be an entrepreneur—you’re just hoping for the best. You know your strengths but also your weaknesses. Please don’t state your opinions until you’ve walked in an entrepreneur’s shoes.
6. We HAVE to optimize if we want to hack our growth. What are our learnings? To synthesize our customer acquisition to reach vertical markets and maximize our LTV and ROI in addition to our ABC and KNV. DYHT? PIQ. KLN. MNF. WTF. ILYD. 1,234, 1,491, and 1123456: these are all huge numbers with potential for exponential growth.
7. Tell everyone you have Imposter Syndrome because in your heart you KNOW you are smarter than you THINK you are. Unless you’re a Boss Bitch (see number 5) in which case you aren’t really sure if you have Imposter Syndrome. Could be society, could be actual incompetence. Hard to tell since you don’t have any real skills.
8. Stop beating yourself up for being young. Just because your mom stopped doing your laundry two years ago doesn’t mean you can’t run a company and take into your own hands people’s health and financial security. You can do anything you set your mind to. Ah FUCK, you’re horny again.
9. If you’re a white man just be edgy and cold to everyone around you—even the people who are helping you. Everyone will appreciate your stoicism and know that you’re not afraid to take risks and break the rules, even societal rules, like basic social norms such as smiling or saying “thank you.” Only say “please” at the start of a sentence in an ironically demanding way. Boss Vaginas, be kind but also stern but not too stern and like neutral-ish.
10. Your entire identity should be your work. Simpletons who don’t relate are less evolved and will never understand. Toss them. You relate to entrepreneurs. Tell every small business owner you come into contact with that you “love the concept.” They’ll understand.

xo,

Girl Boss and Vaginepreneur.