Episode 4: Climbing the Proverbial Ladder
In this episode, author and entrepreneur Erik Severinghaus joins us to talk about his upcoming book Scale Your Everest: How To Be A Resilient Entrepreneur. We discussed building confidence, avoiding burnout, and avoiding the trap of “doing more faster.”
“[With Scale Your Everest], I was able to bring another context for mental resilience - which was the literal climbing of a mountain - to the figurative climbing of a mountain, which is trying to start and build a company.”
About This Week’s Guest
Erik is a serial innovator and entrepreneur who’s helped create products with hundreds of millions of dollars of sales and businesses with hundreds of millions of dollars of exits in businesses ranging from technology platforms to pizza franchises. His companies and opinions have been covered in Forbes, Fortune and The Wall St. Journal. Erik has an undergraduate degree from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. During the spring you’ll find him living and dying by the success of the Tar Heels in the tournament, and come summer time he’s in the right field bleachers of Wrigley cheering on the Cubs. He’s also an avid endurance athlete, twice completing Ironman triathlons and climbing some of the world’s tallest mountains. In 2018 he successfully summited Mt. Everest.
Quick Links
Erik’s book Scale Your Everest launches on April 27. If you’re interested in preordering the book, you can do so on Erik’s website here.
This article from Bank of America reported that women in the US say their biggest concern when starting their own business is access to capital. In fact, 58% say they don’t have the same access to capital as male business owners. But there’s growing evidence of high ROI on female entrepreneurs - in fact, VentureBeat reports that women founders return over 2x as much per dollar invested
In the pod, Erik talked about the barriers to entry for female entrepreneurs pitching their businesses to male venture capitalists. Female venture capital investors are flipping the script; over the last five years, the number of women-led funds has nearly quadrupled, and this rise is only accelerating into 2021. If you’re a female entrepreneur in Chicago, check out InvestHer, an early-stage investment firm that partners with and invests in female entrepreneurs.
Inspiration
For non-entrepreneurs:
It’s hard to overstate the roadblocks that the pandemic has put in place for those launching their own entrepreneurial endeavors. This week, we challenge our listeners to extend support to their network.
For start-ups, that might mean leaving a review, sharing a social media post or making a purchase.
When making purchases, try seeking out women-owned businesses or businesses that align with your personal values, whether that’s sustainability, social justice, or other causes you support. Foxtrot has a great resource to find women-owned businesses.
Check in with your friends with conversations and opportunities outside of the business or the job search. Entrepreneurship can be all-encompassing, demoralizing, or encourage tunnel vision. Remind them of their other dreams, similarly to Erik’s dream of writing the book, to give them some fresh perspective.
For entrepreneurs: Encourage reciprocity with your closest friends or entrepreneurial colleagues. Asking your most daring asks or for support for your biggest dreams is the first step in building the confidence to achieve those goals. And supporting other entrepreneurs can reignite your passion for your own start-up.
Where to Find Us
We’re on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Interested in a guest post on our blog, or want to be a featured guest on the podcast? Email us at weareoverworked@gmail.com.
