Our founder and head honcho, Jen Bilik, had the pleasure of speaking at Her Corner in Washington D.C. Founded by Frederique Irwin, Her Corner is a collaborative and supportive community of women entrepreneurs.
Jen’s talk “What I Knew, What I Didn’t Know, What I Wish I’d Known, and What I Knew Later” is chock full of personal lessons learned throughout her initial years starting Knock Knock. Here are 3 tidbits of entrepreneurial advice—only a small sampling of what she shared:
1. Be self-aware and build your team to compensate for your weaknesses.
“You can work on your weaknesses and you can make them better, but they’re not probably ever going to become strengths. But self-awareness can always be a strength.”
2. Have a point of difference in the marketplace and know what it is.
“I’d gone to the National Stationery Show in May of 2002 and didn’t see a lot of the kind of thing I wanted to do.”
3. When hiring, always listen to your gut.
“I was operating from a position of fear in the early days, not of strength. And when you make decisions based on fear that you’re not gonna be able to get the work done, that you don’t have the expertise, that you have to make a hire in a hurry, it almost never works out. It has to be coming from a position of strength.”
Want practical advice for entrepreneurs from someone who has truly lived it? Request Jen as a speaker or catch her in person at an upcoming speaking engagement!