How to Successfully Transition From Employee to Entrepreneur

Eric Chen, cofounder of Startpad, successfully made the leap from a corporate employee to entrepreneur two years ago. He joins us in this episode to talk about the challenges he faced managing his own business, the mistakes he made, and the lessons he learned. 

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SHOW NOTES

1:03
About Eric Chen and Startpad
2:02
Eric’s role at Startpad
2:53
How Eric manages multiple internal and external teams
7:33
Eric on transitioning from corporate leadership to leading his own company
11:36
Differences between managing a sales team versus managing operations
15:07
Why the manufacturing process is not as straightforward as you think
18:10
What you should do to avoid being taken advantage of in business
22:08
The biggest challenge Eric faced when he transitioned from a sales leadership role to managing his own company
24:29
The importance of leading by example, especially when things go wrong.
33:23
Eric on managing an employee with a different cultural background
35:02
Eric on how leaders can get the best performance from their employees

KEY QUOTES

“One of the most important aspects of that is understanding every bit of the process, having working knowledge, and being able to help out your staff when they do have trouble.”

“You realize this once you are leading a team – they (your staff) take every micro-action you do and it translates back into their performance. If something does go wrong and you’re not able to figure it out and you’re lashing out, they all get frustrated too. As opposed to if you sit down and work through the situation, then your staff can learn to adopt that method of “I need to also figure out how to help the company.”

“I was always micromanaged as an employee in my full-time job. I do recognize the efficiency in doing that, but I also recognize the negative impact it does have on the employees. So, the way we manage our employees is, ideally, complete freedom in what they do.”

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Salesforce.com

 

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