ENTREPRENEURSHIP can be a lonely and stressful business. Who do you turn to for advice when, as leader of your company, you’re supposed to know what to do next?
Well, now you don’t have to put on your brave pants and bare your soul to the bank manager or business adviser – you can simply listen to a podcast.
Created by award-winning entrepreneur and data pioneer Vicky Brock, the Entrepreneur Agony Aunt podcast, featuring some of Scotland’s most successful entrepreneurs, has had an overwhelming response.
Brock, who led her AI start-up Clear Returns to become the Top Tech Start-up in Europe, has been named by Forbes.com and Bloomberg in their top nine female tech CEOs. She says she has enjoyed the support of an “incredible tribe of fellow entrepreneurs and advisers” over the years.
“Some have been with me from before my last business was born and were there to pick me up and encourage me after I left. The most generous and valued of these were the ones who stood up to support me through what felt like the depths of failure and despair, rather than the ones who simply wanted a bit of reflected glory when it was going well.
“When I left the company that I founded, after five and half years as CEO, I started blogging as a way to process some of what I had learned and I suppose to take control of my own narrative. The response was overwhelming - entrepreneurs getting in touch to thank me for telling it like it is and in some cases asking me for specific advice.
“I realised people were feeling isolated and lonely, and under pressure to seem to be doing well all of the time – whatever the reality and stress. The podcast was my response to that.”
It has gone incredibly well so far. Former Skyscanner COO Mark Logan was Brock’s first guest and, as with everyone she has interviewed so far, she selected him because he had given her hugely useful and inspiring advice on a personal level, and she wanted to share the benefits of that advice with a wider audience.
Entrepreneurs, says Brock, need advice and support in key areas – such as investment, people management, self-nurture/care and normalising fear/failure – along with the how-tos and what-not-tos that simply come from experience.
Brock believes Scotland is one of the best places in the world to be an entrepreneur, with plenty of advice and support available, albeit not always joined up:
She said: “Our resident entrepreneurs are extremely accessible and generous with their time, but it is a lonely and stressful pursuit, especially when it can seem you spend a lot more time failing than succeeding.
“I think, culturally, we’re not completely comfortable with those aspects yet, and that is why I wanted to focus on the things you can’t easily talk to Scottish Enterprise or your board about.
“There aren’t any mistakes someone else hasn’t already made.”
Michelle Rodger is a communications consultant
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