WHEN IDEAS BECOME REALITY: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT HBS
If entrepreneurs are born that way, then I must be the weird one out.
Last weekend I was back in Wisconsin for a wedding, and my aunt asked me, "what's the hardest thing about starting your own company?" There were many ways I could have answered that question, but the most honest answer is: "Emotionally it's hard. Believing in yourself is hard… that's the toughest part."
I've always been the gal with ideas. Some good ones – but mostly not so good ones. I tinkered here and there in my free time but never totally committed to a new venture. Why? There was a lot of negative self-talk in my head. I never believed I had what it took to start my own thing. When people talk about a founder, there's often commentary around her magnetic confidence, her natural ability to convince everyone in the room that what she's doing is part of the universe's design. I've certainly never been that person.
I still remember the summer when I was 12 - I just graduated 6th grade and was about to enter middle school. My neighbor told me that middle school was going to be much harder than grade school. (Time out— let's pause. That's a hilarious comment). Instead of having the confidence to say, "I'll be fine in middle school; I'm a great student," I started worrying that I was going to fail out of middle school. Every stage of life has been like that for me: not being sure I'll be able to rise up to the new challenge.
So even though I've had some interesting startup ideas, I never felt like I had the oomph to get me from idea to reality. That was about to change.
I came to HBS wanting to start my own thing – with the rough concept of AirBnB for event venue spaces (e.g., host a birthday party in an art gallery, a wedding in someone's barn). Fortunately, there are a lot of resources for aspiring entrepreneurs at HBS. For me, the most helpful resources were those that built confidence in myself through community and through doing.
Harvard's Innovation Lab (iLab) is a physical space where entrepreneurs across Harvard gather, work, socialize, and create together. My startup, Venuefly, has been lucky enough to be a part of the iLab's incubation program which provides resources, mentorship, and community to Harvard students working on startups. It's a great working space for my co-founder Josh Hoffman-Senn (HBS '19) and I work to on Venuefly there. The iLab fosters community amongst entrepreneurs who get to interact with other founders working on interesting startups and facing similar challenges – from both emotional and business perspectives. Being a part of this community has helped me realize that many founders face self-doubt. It's normal.