as a consumer-facing internet entrepreneur, you will find the distinction between your personal and professional life slowly evaporate. one reason for this is by virtue of being the face of your business, a perpetual walking, talking, living, breathing ad of sorts. you’ll feel like a broken record after repeating your value proposition a bajillion times- sometimes to people who don’t even care but ask for the sake of asking or for the sake of making small talk. but you oblige happily, because any (free) customer acquisition opportunity is a good one, right? after all, you never know who’s listening.
the other form this manifests is in the necessary evil that is social media. self-induced, compromised privacy - this is the stuff tweets/posts/pins are made of. taking photos feels like a chore sometimes, and when your friends make fun of you for “pretending to be exasperated”, the only thing you can do is wear your best tight-lipped smile and shrug apologetically while simultaneously debating between valencia and x-pro filters.
lastly - and this has not happened as much recently but still worth noting - is something that comes as a consequence of being a woman. it is bad enough that the number on your biz card is your personal number (invest in a work phone, one might advise - but how annoying is it to have to deal with two phones?) and every networking event requires tacit trust that XYZ industry contact won’t abuse that number. there was once a well-respected entrepreneur-turned-investor figure in the HK community that sent me 15-20 text messages and 2-3 missed calls a day for a week before I alerted the organization whose mixer I met him at. “oh, he’s harmless” they reassured me. “did you answer him?” to which I replied no of course not…why would i?? “try writing back, maybe he’s just trying to get a response”. this resulted in subsequent angry voicemails and what sounded like threats, but all in cantonese which i couldn’t understand. my friend later translated and asked what i did to piss him off so badly… ignore him?
the most insidious type of character is personified by the guy you just met who says he wants to “invest” … unless you’ve vetted him out, chances are he is trying to take advantage of the young struggling cash-strapped female entrepreneur that you are and will waste a lot of your time trying to get you to date his sorry ass by using the only thing he has going for him - his (purported) money. do your research - don’t be fooled!! it is probably best to respectfully decline his invite to that private yacht party (ok, so it might be a good networking opportunity, but once is enough) and make up an excuse next time he wants to take you out to a fancy dinner (he shut you up with that amazing foie gras last time you tried telling him about the potential scalability of your product, remember? ugh, shit.) a few more take-out dinners in front of your laptop are worth it to avoid the distraction that your male counterparts don’t have to deal with so you can continue to keep your eyes on the prize: turning your startup into a bajillion dollar enterprise.
that’s all for now.
x
vix
