Everything! Managing stress in essential to achieving success. Here’s how entrepreneur Suzanne Sinatra, Founder & CEO of www.privatepacks.com deals with the many aspects of startup stress:
- Entrepreneurship is an emotional roller-coaster. How do you deal with a particularly stressful day? I see stressful days as a time to reset because it’s not effective for my business to make emotionally based decisions. I enjoy speaking with my family and hanging out with my non-startup friends and their families. They all keep it real with me and that grounds me. I also watch reality TV shows.
- In ONE sentence, the secret to succeeding as an entrepreneur is? Being scrappy, having street smarts and common sense — which isn’t so common.
- What’s the most commonly held misconception about startups? That all you need is outside funding or to be part of an accelerator to succeed. Also, I need a white guy on my founding team to get funding.
- Did you have doubts about launching your product? If yes, how did you overcome it? I thought because I don’t have an MBA, I’m not a millennial or have tech product that I wasn’t going to succeed. However, the more I shared with other women that I was creating a genital therapy pack to help ease vaginal pain, they fell in love with my idea and my confidence skyrocketed which propelled me to press on regardless of what the startup community perceives as shortcomings. Tenacity and knowing one’s strengths and weakness I believe is the key to entrepreneurship.
- What’s your advice for aspiring startup founders? Believe in your idea/product, commit to the process. Be nice to every person you meet.
Read how other startup founders handle stress in my on-going series on Inc.com.
