By Heather Nickerson
On my 40th birthday a dear friend gave me a birthday card that included the quote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Those who know me know that I am a risk taker at heart; they also know my risks are calculated.
Now, I don’t think she thought I’d see that card and think, “Oh, time’s-a-ticking, better leave my stable, well-paid executive job and go launch a tech startup.” Nope, highly doubt that thought ever crossed her mind, especially since I was still referring to hashtags as “pound signs” back then. And in fairness, it didn’t initially cross my mind, not in the it’s-all-consuming-can’t-think-of-anything-else kind of way.
But it did inspire me to question just what am I doing? Why am I doing it? Do I love it? Truly love it? Do I want my daughter to reflect on my life and say, “Yep, my mom was a senior executive,” or do I want my daughter to say, “Yep, my mom took a risk and created something no one else was doing at the time.” The latter, most definitely the latter.
Like Having a Baby, There’s No “Perfect Moment”
That thought kept nagging at me in the months that followed. Compounded by a global pandemic (and home-schooling, working, and trying to keep my family safe and healthy, it soon consumed my thoughts. It was no longer something I could easily push-aside as “something I’ll do when I get older.”
Like Having a Baby, There’s No “Perfect Moment”
Nope, no denying it. No more making up excuses, or claiming I needed more time to do more market research. (Who was I kidding? Certainly not myself as I had been doing the market research for my idea years before I received that card.) No more telling myself I couldn’t do it because I didn’t have a technology background. No more trying to find the perfect moment.
Really, is there ever a perfect moment to launch a startup? A perfect moment to pack up your old life, your old career and bid it adieu on nothing more than a big idea and the hope- the belief – that what you are about to do will change people’s lives for the better? No, there isn’t.
There may never be a perfect moment, and all the while you’ll be waiting and waiting for something that may never come. If you want to make a change (in your life, in your career, etc.) make the change.
Watch Out for That Devil: Self Doubt.
My second lesson? Taking the risk wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Admittedly, I had done the planning, I had established a solid savings base to allow me to do so within my comfort zone, and I had a wildly supportive spouse. Not that it wasn’t momentarily terrifying to tell my friends and co-workers that I was moving on, because it was. But it also wasn’t the end of the world. In my head I had made it seem much scarier than it was.
Which is my first lesson learned in all of this. Do not tell yourself you must wait for the perfect moment to make a change or take a risk.
For someone that is a risk taker at heart this may seem surprising, but I think we all have those moments of self-doubt that can linger. For some, the bigger the risk, the bigger the self-doubt. And that’s okay, it’s a part of what makes us human. Our ancestors needed a little bit of risk-aversion every now and then to ensure they wouldn’t make an irreparable mistake.
Bring On a Co-Founder, Early.
For me, one of the scariest components of what I was about to do was that my startup was going to be a tech company, but I didn’t have a tech background. Not even close. I was the one our IT team dreaded getting on the phone. Most calls to IT ended with, “It’s okay Ms. Nickerson, we’ll be right there, don’t touch anything else.” That was me, problem child numero uno when it came to all things tech.
My solution to the I-want-to-build-a-tech-company-but-I-don’t-know-tech was to reach out to my dear friend and former colleague and ask her if she wanted to join me on the great adventure we now call Artifcts. Thankfully for me, she said yes. And thankfully for me, she is the ying to my yang. She gets the tech piece, and product piece, and all the other pieces that I have had to learn, but only marginally understand.
Which brings me to my third lesson—for those of you considering a startup or any new venture: strongly consider bringing in a co-founder as early as possible.
Aside from the tech piece, there is no way I could have built what we have built as a singleton.
Artifcts without my co-founder would be a fraction of what it is today.
I think it’s easy to underestimate just how much work launching a startup is. To clear up any misunderstandings, it’s a LOT. Take your current job and multiply it by 10 and you are probably in the right ballpark. Having a co-founder has been a life saver and has made it possible to continue expanding and doing more, always more. Having a partner that you know and trust can be the difference between startup failure and success.
How’s it going for us? You could argue the verdict is still out. We are two and a half years young, which in startup culture is pretty young. That said, we’ve gotten some amazing traction, we’ve patented our technology platform, and we’re revenue generating. I expect we’re here for the long haul.
That said, I have no doubt that at some point down the road, I’ll be faced with another inflection point, another risk. I hope my future self will pause (but only for a moment) to assess the situation, and then proceed with caution, ideally with a partner by my side.
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
Mae West
About Heather
Heather Nickerson is the co-founder and CEO of Artifcts. She is an avid hiker, skier, baker, storyteller, and collector of memories. Prior to co-founding Artifcts
Heather served as President of a private security company and authored a book on how to protect your privacy. She also served for nearly a decade as an intelligence analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency, including serving as a briefer in a war zone tour in Afghanistan.
