Entrepreneur

17.MY NEXT PROJECT

Now we have come to the last chapter of the book, which should not really have been included and therefore became wonderfully short. It is about what entrepreneurs do after an exit. Why is this interesting enough to be included in this book? Because entrepreneurs, as far as we can see, often make big and catastrophic mistakes after an exit.

Try to imagine the following situation. You are one of the very few entrepreneurs who actually made a home run, including a successful exit. And therefore, after many years of intense work, your work pressure has suddenly abated – and you have a lot of money in the bank account. What do you do now?

We and our hubris

Perhaps you do something brilliant – but perhaps not at all. Here is why it might not be so brilliant: entrepreneurs like us might not be the most humble people on the planet. In fact, let's face it, most entrepreneurs are very self-confident and entrepreneurs who have just made a home run might tend to play a bit of fancy-pantsy. Therefore, after a good exit, we propose you ask yourself: ‘How much did I actually work to get to where I got? Was it a consequence of many years of back-breaking work to get to learn some business and professional discipline inside out? Were there massive preparations involved? Training, training, training? Countless fights and endless work?’

Our guess is that there probably was. Yes, you did all that.

We mention this because if part of the explanation of your success was an ...