Isabella Merrild Agdestein

As a founder, you're constantly faced with challenging decisions. You'll hear plenty of opinions on what your next move should be. Having a firm grasp of your values is key; it helps you cut through the noise and navigate these tough choices.

To foster an entrepreneurial spirit among your team, treat them like entrepreneurs! Assign them challenges that stretch their abilities and watch them devise solutions. Once they succeed, present them with a larger challenge, maintaining that level of difficulty. Continue this cycle. Understand that nurturing this mindset over the years can lead to a decline in motivation if the challenges no longer match their growing capabilities.

In my company, the primary reward is a greater level of responsibility and influence. Those joining us are well aware of this aspect - and we are chosen for this. Only individuals with a high degree of conscientiousness and an entrepreneurial mindset will find this motivating, which is a manner in which we screen prospective team members. By doing this, we've woven our incentive system into the very fabric of the company culture.

Managing risk effectively requires being in a mental state where you're fully equipped to handle tough decisions and intimidating risks. This involves ensuring you're well-rested, as fatigue can cloud judgment. It's also about keeping your biochemistry in check; stress and poor nutrition can be real obstacles. Not to forget the importance of regular exercise, which sharpens the mind and reduces stress. By taking care of these aspects, you're setting yourself up for clearer thinking and better decision-making.

Startup life is a continuous quest to strike the right balance, one of which being finding the sweet spot between being open to others' insights and learning new things versus hunkering down and zeroing in on execution. As startup founders, we're constantly juggling a ton of roles and shifting our focus. It's crucial to recognize when it's time to open up and when it's better to buckle down. I've seen startups that are all about learning and never really get around to doing, which eventually becomes a problem. Then there are those who shut themselves off from anything new and end up working in their own bubble, which is just as challenging.

Right at the start of my entrepreneurial journey, I talked to A LOT of VCs, because we wanted to build a highly scalable company and knew we would want to raise VC funding at some point. I told them about our business model, our plan to hit the market, and more, and faced some tough questions. When I kept hearing the same objections on a certain topic, I would iterate that part of the plan and get feedback on the new version until I found something that would not only work with customers but also with investors.