the 20 things I learned running a startup in 2020.

This year has finally come to an end and I figured, it was time to reflect on my year and all the things I learned running Bessie.

Entrepreneurship is hard.

I know this is something people mention often but, because most of the stories we hear are about billion dollar exits it creates this false idea of what it is actually like. It's really stressful financially, mentally and impacts the relationships you have with your family and friends. Also, you may be working towards something that never comes to fruition.

Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.

For the last few years, I naively thought that everyone should have or at least want to have a side hustle or should want to be an entrepreneur. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Because of all of the reasons I mentioned above, it isn’t for everyone—and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be.

Respectfully, slide into DMs.

Sometimes, the right people don’t exist in your circle so sending a cold DM on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram is a great way to build your network—especially if you’re in Calgary. In 2020, I made more connections in marketing and in tech than ever simply by reaching out.

Bootstrap if you can!

Bootstrapping when you don’t have product market fit is ideal. You don’t have to worry about spending someone else’s money and never getting it back. But there is a limit to how much you can do if you are bootstrapping. Likely, you will not have a salary for a year or more.

Figure out if you want to raise or debt-finance.

As soon as you have found product market fit, raise or get debt-financing. Giving up equity or taking on debt makes it easier for you to hire staff and grow as quickly as possible.

Understand your margins.

My start in marketing focused heavily on brand and as great as that it is, all marketers need to have a strong understanding on your margins so you can quickly do napkin paper math to see if an opportunity is worth it or to find ways to get more margin.

Be ruthless with your ROI.

Be lean with your marketing and if something isn’t working, pull it immediately. You can save your self grief and money (which is key, especially if you’re bootstrapping) and you can take the data to build a better, more effective campaign.

Raising capital is time consuming.'

Our advisors told us it was a journey to raise capital and I honestly thought, it wasn’t going to be that bad. It isn’t. Raising capital needs to become a top priority and can become a full-time job. Depending on how your start-up is structured, there may be one person handling the raise. However, if you are all equal founders (or near equal) or if your founding team is made up of underrepresented groups, it may be something all of you do.

Understand all elements your business.

You never know who you will be pitching and when. Yes, VCs will understand if you need to send them an email with an answer to one of their questions later but, having some idea of what is happening in every part of your business will help you answer the easy questions.

Test on your personal accounts.

Marketers, if you do not have an account on every single social media platform and a few burner emails, what are you doing? I use my personal accounts to test out the algorithm, content, hashtags, apps and more before taking it to Bessie.

Advocate for the things that are important to you.

All of us have a platform, whether it is online or within the friend circles you have. Over the last year, I have recognized that importance on leveraging your voice for anything that is important to you. Life is too short and our world is too flawed to not say something.

Customer Discovery never ends.

Your product and experience can always be better and talking to your customers is the best way to understand what other things you can build to make them fall in love with your brand even more. Also, if you are like me (an extraverted empath), you will actually enjoy it.

Transparency is so important.

Especially if you work in food. 2020 was hard and so far, 2021 hasn’t been that much better. Your customers, suppliers, and partners all deserve to know what is going on—even if you don’t have the “right” answer.

People over profit.

I know that is a potentially controversial thing to say but! People are at the heart of everything I do at Bessie and our success has come from taking the time to really understand our customers, farmers and suppliers. There have been many moments where we did the right thing not the profitable thing and have won over someone’s business for life.

Disagree with your co-founders.

This took me a little bit to learn (hello imposter syndrome!) but, if you are a co-founder with nearly equal equity to your partners, you need to share when you disagree with them. Ideally, you can go back and forth until you come up with something even better than you all imagined.

Build systems and processes.

I’ll be the first to admit: I hate building systems and processes. I think it’s boring and I would rather do anything else. However, when Bessie grew seemingly 10x overnight, the systems and processes saved us. They made it easier for us to onboard new staff, get product and handle the influx of customers.

Stress those systems and processes.

Some of the systems and processes we had in place did break, leading to a few chaotic days. It forced us to change a few things and build better technology and customer service support which helped us retain customers and continue to grow.

Take a break.

I had an epic fall from grace from 2018-2019 because I was completely burnt out—maybe I’ll chat about it in another blog post later. Since then, I have done everything to make sure my mental and physical health comes first but, in 2020, I wasn’t the best about taking time off when I needed it.

Talk about more than your business.

Look your friends and family love you but, they don’t care about your business as much as you do—and that’s okay. No one wants to talk about work all the time. Frankly, it’s not that interesting. Be present with your loved ones, make them a priority and schedule around them and other non-work related things that are important to you.

Don't be the smartest person in a room (virtual or otherwise).

I used to feel so insecure when I was on a team with someone who was brighter than I was. And I truly believe that mindset hindered my career growth. Over the last year, I tried my hardest surround myself by people who are smarter than me or have different strengths than me. By doing this, I grew in many ways: I learned about supply chain, different marketing tactics and more. More importantly, I got over my insecurity and built a supportive community around me filled with brilliant minds.