It is very hard to create and lead a business. Things never seem to be easy, and after each victory there are three challenges to cope with.
One thing that is exciting is to tackle each problem that came along – launching a new product, approaching a new market, winning a great new project is, as every one that has been there knows, an extraordinary adrenaline rush – and lots of fun.
The thing is that all these successes are just the peaks in very challenging mountains, with all the ups and downs and the inevitable valleys after each ascent. The best way to illustrate this thought I found it in a cartoon some years ago and that I do not resist to share:
But this loneliness is completely different if you run a >€100M company or a €10M one. If you have a very large company, you also have a large board with other Directors to share your decisions, you have a long list of managers to help things happen and you are less prone to be absorbed by day to day small problems.
In an interview Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that one of the challenges of his position is “It’s sort of a lonely job”. But for smaller companies, “lonely job” means something else. Usually Leaders must take most of the decisions by themselves, with no peer to help him, and must be deeply involved making any change happen, as their second line of management is not so extended as they wish – usually one or 2 key people to help along, but not enough hands on deck to make deep transformations that leaders sometimes envisage but have not the resources in house to do it alone.
That’s the main reason we’ve started W-Rocket – All in our senior team have been at least once entrepreneurs in our lives, with business to run and hard decisions to make - and we know how hard it is.
We are used to work, as consultants, to large companies [~>50M], that have the resources to hire teams of consultants for large projects and help them grow. We figure that the same skills can be even more helpful for smaller companies, that tackle the same problems and were executive muscle can make even a larger difference.
That was our vision when we decided to embrace this new venture – we are going to help these companies grow – providing to their CEO’s the extra executive muscle and brainpower they need to fulfil their own expansion.
We will help you 😊