Call us: 1.405.235.2305
info@i2E.org
  • Events
  • News
  • Resources
  • Library
  • Love’s Cup
i2Ei2Ei2Ei2E
  • About
  • Entrepreneurship
    • Venture Advisory Services
    • Love’s Entrepreneur’s Cup
  • e3
  • Concept Fund
  • iMCI
  • Portfolio
  • Contact

Starting a company is hard but rewarding work

    Home News Starting a company is hard but rewarding work
    NextPrevious

    Starting a company is hard but rewarding work

    By sarah | News | 0 comment | 2 July, 2019 | 0

    By Scott Meacham
    Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman

    Oklahoma’s expanding innovation economy is having a significant and lasting effect on our state.

    Oklahoma’s entrepreneurs build companies and create jobs through the realization of their dreams, inventions and hard work.

    I wanted to contribute, and I wanted to learn — about innovation, about creating sources of early stage capital and about what it takes to turn and idea into a sustainable advanced technology business.

    I expected that my learning curve would be more incremental. However, when it comes to entrepreneurship and commercializing new technologies, I’ve come to realize that often the learning process is more like stepping on a rake.

    Over the next few columns, I will be sharing some of the things I’ve learned during my six-plus years of “ahas” and “oh-nos.” My first aha: Starting a company looks hard, but people who haven’t tried it have no idea how difficult it actually is.

    First, there’s the career and financial risk. An entrepreneur must go “all in” on themselves and their business if they want to succeed. They might start out building a business on the side, but eventually, to be successful, he or she must quit that day job to dive into the startup endeavor full-time. Full-time is likely to mean 80 hours a week for months, sometimes years on end. It means giving up paychecks and giving up sleep — missing dinners, vacations, baseball games, your spouse, your kids and any sport you used to enjoy. It means working harder than you ever have in your life.

    Successful entrepreneurs must be able to pivot to a new approach when the dream and vision (the feelings and beliefs that caused them to take all that risk in the first place) turn out NOT to be what the market needs at all.

    Entrepreneurship means excelling in the business skills you know and then being almost clairvoyant in building a team who can do and teach you things you haven’t ever done and don’t know how to do. It’s owning the quality and culture of your company — the entrepreneur’s name is on every product; every customer relationship is your responsibility. It’s making 100 investor presentations to raise capital and then figuring out how to stretch that capital as far as possible.

    It’s getting the best advice you can find and then having the confidence to make your own decisions the best that you can, knowing that those decisions affect the lives and security of your employees, customers, investors and family.

    So, if entrepreneurship is so risky and hard, why do so many bright Oklahomans with promising alternatives become entrepreneurs?

    Because when they succeed, they create new products that literally change the world — such as medicines that treat untreatable diseases, battery technology that improves the environment, glasses that help people with macular degeneration see.

    Scott Meacham is president and CEO of i2E Inc., a nonprofit corporation that mentors many of the state’s technology-based startup companies. i2E receives state appropriations from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology. Contact Meacham at i2E_Comments@i2E.org .

    entrepreneurship, Scott Meacham

    Related Posts

    • Love’s Cup impact on Oklahoma entrepreneur community deep — and wide

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham When the world is running along in normal ways at normal speeds, we tend not to think as much about connections between disconnected things. For me lately, in the third quarter ofRead more

    • At Ten-Nine Technologies, lessons learned from both science, entrepreneurship

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham If you asked me to name the profession most similar to entrepreneurship, I would say science. Both are based on problem-solving, experimentation, data, and the confidence to recognize that failure is aRead more

    • Entrepreneurs, Cowboys and the ability to execute a plan

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham I often get the question “What is a typical day like working with entrepreneurs ?” My answer is short: There is no such thing as a typical day, and that is perfectlyRead more

    • Entrepreneurship fuels the state’s economy

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman This summer, I’ve been writing about lessons learned since coming to i2E nearly six years ago — specifically lessons about technology entrepreneurship in our state. It seemsRead more

    • Support for entrepreneurs is a moon shot effort

      By sarah | 0 comment

      By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman This month we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It was President John F. Kennedy’s idea. In 1961, the president challenged NASA andRead more

    Leave a Comment

    Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    NextPrevious
    i2E-300dpi-Trans-Light
    • Events
    • News
    • Resources
    • Library
    • Love’s Cup

    Oklahoma City Office

    840 Research Parkway, Suite 250
    OKC, OK 73104
    PHONE 405/235-2305
    Click HERE for printable map with directions.

    Tulsa Office

    618 E. Third Street, Suite 1
    Tulsa, OK 74120
    PHONE 918/582-5592
    Click HERE for printable map with directions.
    Copyright 2021 i2E, Inc. | All Rights Reserved
    • About i2E
    • Services
    • Investments
    • Development
      • Love’s Cup
        • Forms
        • High Growth
        • Small Business
        • Timeline
    • Portfolio 3
    • Contact
    i2E