Entrepreneurial leaders this is your moment to rise!

In October last year, I had breakfast at the Tanglin Club with some investors who were looking to set up a $30M fund to invest in early-stage startups across South East Asia. Collectively we predicted there will be a GFC and recession in 2020 and that it was the prime time to wait and watch the first 6 months for the real entrepreneurs to rise up. 

Having worked with early-stage founders for the last 8 years, those who have the fighting power and resilience will not only make the right decisions to ride out the storm but they will also come up winning on top when it's over. 

These are people I call leaders. This special group of people not only knows ‘when’ to make the ‘timely, tough and critical decisions but they take on the accountability and responsibility to lead their communities on the journey to recovery.

As I read the daily updates, it's crazy to see 6 months later, in addition to already a series of natural disasters earlier in the year but to add a global health pandemic in the mix will definitely escalate the GFC and recession for a prolonged period of time.

You will hear in the startup world, one of the key factors to early venture success is timing, it's one of the biggest contributors to being successful or unsuccessful whether you are too early or too late that can have a multi-million or billion-dollar impact to your business and valuation.

Rise up

In January this year; I retired as a General Manager with Investible an early-stage global investment group after almost 5 years in the business to pursue my biggest passion which is to work and support Founders on their journey. Whilst I am still a shareholder, I have joined Fingerprint for Success (one of our first portfolio companies from Club Investible) to lead global partnerships and expansion to new markets to support more global founders.

I currently coach individuals, founders, coaches, business owners, leaders and high performing teams to hit their next company milestone through collective individual and team goals.

Now more than ever is the right time we need all of YOU entrepreneurs and leaders in the world to rise up and lead the way, this is one of the greatest opportunities in the world to influence and ignite change. People will have the time and attention to focus on what really matters and if your business can help customers in a digital world, you are going to thrive. 

Reach out

Probably for the first time in a long time people will have some reflection time out of normal ‘operational’ complacent modes to really reflect and pause on what really matters. 

A truly special time to reach out and connect to people at work, friends, and family around the world. Use this time to be curious about who you are and the value you want to personally want to bring into the world. I spent last weekend zoom calls with my family and best friends in Australia, which has never happened before. There is always some good out of some bad. Ask yourself whom do you want to be on the journey with you, in this life? Its time to reach out to them!

This week our CEO and Founder Michelle Duval of F4S set up a #health slack channel and encouraged us to all ‘over-communicate’. We are in 3 different time zones as I watched the video Christina our Head of Marketing in Spain sharing people clapping and sharing music across their balconies just warmed my heart to know the core truth of humanity is that we want to support and belong to each other in times of need. Actively sharing promotes a unique bond between us during these uncertain and scary times. We also had to celebrate Michelle's birthday during our first week on remote working from home, so that was new and fun. We also made her face-plant her birthday cake so that got some good endorphins flowing in the team (much needed in remote working and being isolated).

I've so seen Community Managers like Melissa Ran from Airtree Ventures have been actively been championing group zoom calls on mental health, well-being, and workshop sessions to help their portfolio and opened the overall Startup community, what a wonderful opportunity to bring the communities closer together and get connected in a unique moment in time. 

So Leaders; reach out, be the ‘Voice’, lead your communities. Don't just survive these difficult times, but do everything in your power (feel it in every cell of your body) to thrive! 

At Fingerprint for Success our mission to help elevate your unique talents in the world, drop me a line if you are ready to Rise & Reach out (R&R), we can help uncover your teams' communication styles and motivational preferences during remote working and how to promote #TogetherStronger team culture during these tough times.  

To learn more about leadership here is an article on 8 characteristics of leaders at F4S after studying successful leaders and entrepreneurs for the last 20 years.