A few weeks back, I received a message from someone who had heard my appearance on Hubspot’s The Growth Show podcast. He posed a question that got me thinking…hard.
I’m an introvert myself and someone who really enjoys mentoring and advising tech startup founders. The usual guidance about building startups is all about moving quickly (out of the world of ideas into execution!), getting out and talking to potential customers and building your network (often through meetups etc). All things that I think are especially tough or mentally draining for introverts.
This leads me to ask if you’ve written about, or have any guiding tips, for introverted founders to work through these in building their business? (emphasis added)
I have to be honest, I could have sworn I had covered this at some point.
Turns out, I haven’t. But it’s absolutely true. There are certain machinations that are part of the startup or entrepreneur experience, that drain introverts a bit more than they might extroverts. I haven’t yet talked about the nature of temperament as it pertains to this experience. But I want to.
I want to round out my year on the blog with an examination of three parts of the founder/entrepreneur experience where temperament often comes into play: networking and connection building, collaboration, and self-promotion. I’ll seek to share examples from my own experience, as well as those from other people whose work I have grown to appreciate. Through it all, I hope you’ll see that success in a founder or creator role can look different from what you might have thought.
Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for my take on the topic, and thanks to Peter Moore of Starteer for the inspiration!
Amma Marfo 