Entrepreneurship is a video game
Iโve never been a hardcore gamer - and yet, I feel like building a company is as fun as playing a video game ๐ฎ
Framing entrepreneurship as a game can make it more fun:
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ข๐ง ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ
The main story is what youโre going to build, step-by-step.
Youโll find yourself in front of external forces and obstacles to overcome:
โช๏ธ Being better than competitors
โช๏ธ Understanding your customers
โช๏ธ Dealing with environmental factors
โช๏ธ Barriers to entry in a specific market
โช๏ธ Finding the best ways to solve the issues you will face
And for that, youโll need to level up, gain new competencies and ultimately, face the big boss.
The big boss is nothing else than the big challenge you decided to take on.
Itโs your purpose. Beating that big boss is achieving your vision.
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ข๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฌ
Side quests help you get more experience points, and more inventory resources to level up.
It can be:
โช๏ธ Finding investors
โช๏ธ Working on your positioning
โช๏ธ Getting a grant or subvention
โช๏ธ Partnering with other companies
โช๏ธ Refining your processes, culture, and ops
โช๏ธ Teaming up with people who have complementary skills
Without those side quests, you usually plateau at some point and need to take action in order to move to the next stage.
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฌ
Daily quests are the repetitive tasks that you have to do to keep a healthy company.
Though they can be boring and tedious, they are necessary for you to advance. And sometimes, they can be as rewarding as the journey in itself:
โช๏ธ Customer support
โช๏ธ Data analyses
โช๏ธ Prospection
โช๏ธ Accounting
โช๏ธ Sales calls
๐๐ฉ๐๐๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐๐ฏ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ฌ
Special events are these very particular moments where you can collect rare rewards and accelerate, like a new launch, an invitation to a conference, a press article, or a new channel you unlocked. Donโt miss the opportunity: once theyโre gone, theyโre gone.
Now, you may wonder why Iโm framing entrepreneurship as a game: because Iโm currently partying with our accountant to fight the P&L and Balance-Sheet bosses (and Iโm not sure I found the right combo yet) ๐ฅฒ
Lesson: When youโre fighting with spreadsheets and cold emails, remember this is just a game. Sometimes, it is full of glitches and you might be a bit frustrated. But the journey is as cool as the end credits ๐
(I'm sharing more startup lessons right there: https://gist.github.com/marwann/34a4fac42ada7a4e759e375a5a89afb4 )
