🚀✉️ Rules of the upside
Brittney Oliver, Founder of Lemons 2 Lemonade, is this week's Five Minute Mentor
Happy *Monday letter getters,
*Yes, Monday. I took a two week hiatus from our weekly letters, and wanted to send one out to you as soon as I could. I'm testing a different day than Friday, so if you like seeing LaunchLetter at the beginning of the week, let me know!
Today's letter is about the upsides and downsides of entrepreneurship. Starting a company is a thankless career path. Not everyone sees running a business as a special accomplishment. Taking a corporate job is much easier, and offers the ever elusive perk of work-life balance (and healthcare).
So what are the benefits of entrepreneurship?
Well, since we I'm already orbiting around risk, I think it's fair to point out that you don't have to love risk to start a business. Lots of business founders or owners try to take low-risk, high reward decisions. Mohnish Pabrai argues that entrepreneurs limit their downside with low-risk, and high uncertainty plays.
The joy of solving a problem that a lot of people have is a huge upside. Seeing your solution work for a customer is a great feeling that undoubtably opens doors as you keep growing. Being your own boss is fun, and creating wealth for your family is great, gaining experience managing projects and negotiating deals certainly help sharpen skills that may go untested in a corporate position. Perhaps most importantly, developing a healthy relationship with failure, and investing in yourself enough to cultivate a resilient attitude is something that experience in startups teaches well.
If you've been wondering when it's all going to pay off, this week's LaunchLetter is for you.
The other week, I was on a panel moderated by Kirsty Goodlett, who we featured in a recent LaunchLetter interview. The panel was about storytelling, branding and PR and it featured Lemons 2 Lemonade founder, Brittney Oliver. Lemons 2 Lemonade is an online platform geared to help motivate and equip Millennials with career and lifestyle tips to help them achieve their goals. The site includes a blog, networking mixer, panel discussions and a bi-weekly newsletter. Each component introduces Millennials to techniques that will help them thrive through life's challenges. Some of these techniques are based on Brittney's experiences, while others are from guests. Meet your five minute mentor, Brittney Oliver.
That everyone can equally have access to employment and equally get paid for their work. There should not be a racial wealth gap. Millennials should not have to work 3 jobs just to have the bare minimum.
Hustle.
I started Lemons 2 Lemonade for two reasons. In 2011, I went on over 100 interviews in 8 month period in search for an entry level position in PR. Like many other Millennials during that time, I was competing in a tough market. However, while my peers were able to get really cool jobs in the marketing/media industry, I was struggling to enter. I felt alone my job search especially living in NYC. Four years after that experience, I still carried shame from not being able to have the career that I hoped for. I was able to let go of that shame by writing about the experience on LinkedIn. It went viral and made me realize that we are never alone in our struggles (lemons). I was able to free myself from that shame and create a community who wanted to read more of my thoughts on career. I started the blog and then in 2016 created the networking event series, #L2LMixer. I always loved event production and it was one of the reasons why I pursued PR because at the time there weren't many companies or roles that involved marketing event activations. At the time I was working at companies that had horrible culture and my roles limited my potential and growth. While producing my own events and building my freelance writing experience, I realized I could create the experience myself in hopes to get the type of role that I wanted. L2L would be my way to break into the industry and companies that I desired, but hiring managers always told me I did not have enough experience. Unfortunately, I still have not have found a full time job that combines my skill sets and desires. Years later I'm still having a difficult job search, but I did create my own brand and opportunity for myself to do what I love.
Hustle to me is hard work. People don't know how to stay on top of industry trends, be ready for opportunities and stay sharp when it comes to be innovative at work. The workplace is so much more than the scope of your role and they don't teach that in school. It's not a short cut or easy lane. Hustle is working hard to get by until your big break. It's hard to spend large amounts of time doing something you aren't passionate about. It's hard faking the funk in order to keep money in your pocket to pay your bills. It's hard to have to manage and juggle building a brand and relationships with key people in your industry to navigate your way to where you want to go. Many people don't have what it takes to stay on top of the things that matter to try to reach your career goals.
Having an affirmation to start off the day.
Spending money you don't have to invest in your business. Also, that you can take breaks and work at your own pace. For me [investing in my own business] worked, because if I waited for a company to sponsor me then I would not have produced as many events. I would not have the series at all. This year I told myself that I would not produce an event unless I got the sponsorship I was looking for. I had a big company reach out to me last year with interest in sponsoring 2019 events, but they rescinded their interest because they wanted to see more of what I can do. However, their interest made me started pitching brands last November and I had some great meetings all year with banks and tech companies, but no one wanted to give me the money I was looking for. However, my brand was getting exposure from speaking engagements and everyone wanted to know what L2L was all about. I need to produce an event to back up my hype with or without the investment from others. I would not have produced any events if I did not find a way to fund it myself. I fund my L2L mixers through bartering and my freelance writing fees if sponsorship does not come through. I'm going on tour in October and I'm self-funding it. I'm going to bring my event west and invite executives to attend so they can see first hand what this event is all about in hopes that I can get the funding I'm looking for in 2020. I'm investing in myself so that I can get the investments from others. Sometimes people need to see what you can do before they back you.
Betting on myself. When I felt like corporate America was never going to give me what I wanted from it, I had to bet on myself to create the life that I want. For example, I had a job that did not like that I was a freelance writer and was skeptical that it would take up my time from the job. However, one December they could not make payroll and shut down the office until the new year. I kept my freelance gig because I knew that jobs come and go but having income is vital. I was able to pay my rent while some of my colleagues really struggled because they did not have any other income coming in. Betting on myself kept me afloat when my full-time job failed me. Betting on myself created a personal brand for me that created opportunities that elevated my expertise in a way that my full-time would not. Betting on myself has allowed me to help over 700 millennials turn career lemons into lemonade.
Brittney Oliver is a professional based in greater Nashville with expertise in public relations, marketing communications, writing, event and content management and social media strategy. After living in NYC for seven years, this content strategist moved back to her hometown to build her event series Lemons 2 Lemonade (L2L).
Brittney expertise in public relations has gained client placements in USA Today, ABC New, Chicago Tribune and Black Enterprise. She was instrumental in developing an email marketing strategy for CocoaFab.com and Travelista Teri. Her writing has been featured in Teen Vogue, TIME, ESSENCE, Revolt, Business Insider and Fast Company. Read more here on her blog.
(Credit: http://brittneyoliver.com/about/)
You can find her on LinkedIn and at Twitter: @britt_s_o, and Instagram @bsoliver
Recent Achievements:
Brittney was a keynote speaker at LinkedIn's TransformHER in San Francisco.
Entrepreneurs can also like low-risk, high reward scenarios. Thinking of all entrepreneurs as "righ risk" might be a misnomer.
Here's an awesome Twitter thread about a downside scenario: company failure. His story is all too familiar. He's part of a startup, the team tries their best to put it all together, but in the end it doesn't work out. At the end of the thread he writes: School fees. He's right, lessons for founders are the real life decisions they make in their businesses. No education is free.
Of course you don't always have to choose to quit your job one day and start a business the next. Here's an article from Forbes about taking your side business full-time.
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