How learning to build a team changed the way I think about entrepreneurship, leadership and success.
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
— Steve Jobs
There is a particular kind of confidence that comes from knowing you can do everything yourself. I know it well. For years, I built businesses without a team to fall back on and without anyone waiting to tell me what to do next. I learned to become the accountant when the numbers needed attention, the marketer when the business needed visibility, the social media manager when the brand needed a voice, the salesperson when revenue needed to grow and the problem-solver whenever something inevitably went wrong. I became very good at figuring things out. Perhaps too good. Solopreneurship was my unofficial business education and one of the greatest schools of survival I could have attended. It taught me independence, resilience and the ability to make decisions when there was nobody else to make them for me. When you are responsible for everything, you learn quickly that there is no point waiting for perfect conditions. You adapt, improvise and keep moving. There is an undeniable freedom in knowing that your results are in your own hands, but there is also a trap: when you become accustomed to carrying everything, you can start believing that carrying everything is what strength looks like.
For years, I thought that was simply what entrepreneurship was supposed to feel like. Then, last year, I joined a new venture and found myself in unfamiliar territory: I had to build a team. Suddenly, my results were no longer entirely mine, and, if I’m being honest, I didn’t handle that realization particularly well at first. I knew what was possible. I could see the opportunity. I knew how quickly I would move if I were doing it myself, so I expected everyone around me to move with the same urgency. When they didn’t, I pushed harder. And sometimes, instead of creating momentum, I created the opposite. People pulled back, some lost confidence and some stopped performing altogether. It took me a while to understand that I was trying to build a team as if I were still a solopreneur. The problem was that I had forgotten something obvious: people aren’t businesses. They don’t all move at the same speed, and they don’t arrive with the same experience, confidence or motivation. What feels incredibly simple to someone who has spent years building businesses can feel completely foreign to someone taking their first entrepreneurial steps. Some people need direction, others need encouragement, some need to see something before they believe it, and almost everyone needs to feel trusted. Once I understood that, I stopped asking myself, “Why aren’t they doing it?” and started asking a much more useful question: “What do they need from me to succeed?” It sounds like a small shift, but it changed the way I communicate, motivate and lead.
I learned that pushing people toward a result is not the same as helping them believe they can reach it. Leadership isn’t simply telling people where to go; it is helping them understand the vision, breaking something intimidating into manageable steps, recognizing progress and giving people enough confidence to eventually find their own independence. I had spent years learning how to become independent myself. Now I had to learn how to help other people become independent too. And somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened: the team became more than a team. It became a community. People came from different countries, backgrounds and stages of life, each bringing different experiences and strengths to the table. One person’s experience could become someone else’s shortcut. One person’s success could become another person’s lesson. One introduction could open a door that someone never would have found alone. Suddenly, building a business wasn’t just about what I could accomplish; it was about what became possible when different people brought their knowledge, relationships, ideas and energy together.
That changed something much deeper for me. One of the hardest parts of building alone isn’t necessarily the workload. It’s the feeling that you’re carrying the entire vision by yourself. You can be ambitious, capable and successful, yet still have moments when you wonder whether anyone else truly sees what you see. When you’re building alone, there is nobody beside you saying, “Keep going. I see it too.” Having a team changes that. There is more responsibility because your words, attitude and reactions can affect other people, but there is also something incredibly powerful about knowing you are no longer carrying the entire dream by yourself. There are people to learn from, people to challenge you, people to celebrate with and people who remind you of the bigger picture when business inevitably becomes difficult. I also learned that leadership doesn’t mean creating a group of people who work exactly the way I do. That would defeat the purpose of having a team. The goal is to create an environment where people can become the strongest version of themselves.
I don’t regret the years I spent building alone. They made me resourceful, resilient and unafraid of figuring things out when there was no obvious answer. They taught me how to sell, market, strategize, solve problems, make difficult decisions and keep moving when nobody was coming to rescue me. But those years also taught me something I couldn’t have understood at the beginning: independence is a powerful foundation, but it doesn’t have to be the destination. At some point, growth means recognizing that you don’t need to be the person who does everything. You need to become the person who knows how to bring the right people together.
That realization changed the way I see opportunity. What began as a new venture has grown into a community stretching across Canada, the United States and England—a group of people at different stages of their entrepreneurial journeys, learning from one another, sharing ideas, creating connections and discovering possibilities that are difficult to see when you’re working inside your own bubble. Someone else’s experience can save you months of trial and error. Someone else’s introduction can lead to a conversation you never expected. Someone else’s belief in you can be the small push that gets you moving when you’ve been standing on the edge of an idea for far too long. That, to me, is the real power of a team: not simply dividing the work, but multiplying what becomes possible.
Maybe you’ve been thinking about building something of your own. Maybe you have an idea you’ve been postponing, a career you’ve outgrown or simply a feeling that you’re capable of more. You don’t need to arrive with a perfect plan or a decade of entrepreneurial experience. You don’t even need to know exactly where the road leads. You need curiosity, an open mind and the willingness to take the first step. The right environment can give you the knowledge, relationships, accountability and confidence to take the next ones.
That is what we are building. Not just a business, but a community of people who want more for themselves and are willing to learn, grow and build to get there. Our team is already growing across Canada, the United States and England, and there is room for more stories, more ideas and more people who are ready to see what they can create when they stop trying to figure everything out alone.
For years, I was proud to say, “I built this myself.” Today, I’m proud of something different: being surrounded by people who are building their own futures while helping one another build something bigger. There is a different kind of energy in that. You stop asking, “Can I do this?” and start asking, “What could happen if I did this with the right people beside me?”
Maybe your next chapter doesn’t need another 14-hour workday. Maybe it doesn’t need another course, another plan or another year of waiting until you’re ready. Maybe it needs a room full of people who are building, learning and moving forward – and an invitation to walk through the door.
I spent years learning how to build alone. Now I’m building with people. And if you’ve been wondering what might be possible for you, perhaps it’s time to find out – not someday, not when everything is perfect, but now. Come meet us. See what we’re building. Bring your ambition, your questions and your ideas. You may come looking for a business opportunity, but you might just find the people who help you build a much bigger future than you imagined.
