One of the most important things you can do is build an ecosystem of people around you who want to see you do well. That might be making appropriate introductions or providing mentorship or introducing others to key hires over time. It's not just what you can learn at your job before you set out on your own, but also thinking about how you're cultivating that ecosystem and keeping in touch with that group around you.
Alexis MaybankEventually that's where you want to be really scrappy as an entrepreneur when you're first getting your business up and running: hiring the right people, partnering the right way, getting feedback on what you're doing.
Alexis MaybankI have had lots of men on my team and I have had lots of women on my team, and men are asking constantly. That's one thing to just know as woman: by general rule, men are more generally asking than women.
Alexis MaybankWhen I came right out of college I remember someone pulling me aside and telling me how to exactly fit in. How to wear my hair, what clothes I should wear, even how I should talk and wave or not wave or hold my hands. I wish I never had that conversation. It held me back for like two years and it took me a while to learn this myself, but the idea that you are your own brand, and you are your own person.
Alexis MaybankI always have to add to a team someone who is a highly tactile, list-oriented person who keeps us on track. And call them a COO or executive all-star, or whatever. I need to balance myself with people around this table who are much better at organizing, which is certainly a blind spot of mine.
Alexis MaybankOne of the most important things you can do is build an ecosystem of people around you who want to see you do well. That might be making appropriate introductions or providing mentorship or introducing others to key hires over time. It's not just what you can learn at your job before you set out on your own, but also thinking about how you're cultivating that ecosystem and keeping in touch with that group around you.
Alexis MaybankIf I am forced to come up with organizing tips, I use my iPhone and I have my to-do list that I keep there, and I try to go in weekly and have at it. I am never going to get through that entire list, so I have to weekly, as I check in, push up the priority and the three or four things that I absolutely have to get done, and constantly reorder the list. If anything, I feel like I have gotten more comfortable with that fact: knowing that what is really, truly important will get done and then being comfortable when other things fall by the wayside.
Alexis Maybank