Entrepreneurship is cool, it’s sexy, and if you live in an innovation district like Waterloo or Silicon Valley, it’s part of pop culture.
It seems everyone is a founder of something nowadays. Unicorns are no longer just for children and the lure of the “Be your own boss!” message is stronger than ever. But, just like the most pop culture phenomena, startup culture doesn’t show you the whole story.
The truth is starting a company, particularly a tech company, is harder than it seems. For every one winner there are nine losers. Entrepreneurship is a career choice that requires specific skill, instinct, resilience, and a passion for delivering value.
But, if you can pull it off, building a successful company is highly rewarding.
Through my experiences designing programming at a world-renowned startup incubator, I see the entrepreneur’s journey – successes and failures – every day. My goal is to give startup founders and intrapreneurs the truth about building out innovative products and services, and to provide them with answers to questions about entrepreneurship that are hard to ask and, sometimes, hard to get honest answers to. “The Startup’s Guide to the Galaxy” is a digital coffee date with dozens of high profile startup founders, intrapreneurs, and mentors, like Mike Litt from Vidyard, Loren Padelford from Shopify, and Jana Levene from Google.
The posts in this series are samples of the interviews from a publication currently in development. Over the next several months, we will share these leaders’ no BS stories of entrepreneurship and get their take on what it is really like to start a technology company. We hope that the series will inspire you to be smart, plan for your successes, learn from your failures, and be a successful, kick-ass entrepreneur.
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About the Authors
Clinton Ball is the Director of Client Programs and Initiatives at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo, Ontario. As the co-founder of a small software company, Clinton can relate to those building out a technology company and is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs build and scale their companies. When he’s not designing or delivering Accelerator Centre Programming you can find Clinton reading up on the latest marketing, technology and entrepreneurship resources, exploring a new trail or coffee spot, or trying to get better at his swing on the golf course.
Tabatha Laverty is the Community Manager at the Accelerator Centre. As a passionate storyteller and digital marketer, she has worked with entrepreneurs, not-for-profits, and public service agencies for 5 years – helping them develop content, share their stories, and build their brands. When she isn’t writing or meeting new entrepreneurs, you can find her spending time with her husband and 2 young children.