Buffer is fairly big, and it’s easy to get intimidated thinking about the things you might not know, all the many different pieces, products and tools that power our organization.
But what if Buffer were your company to run? Whatever role you have at Buffer, imagine the problems you’d fix, the changes you’d make, the experiments you would try, the specific expertise you’d bring…
Now. Go do those things.
It won’t happen all at once, but what we’re talking about is developing an entrepreneurial mindset.
A while back at Buffer, we used to talk a lot about a startup mindset. We’re past the startup phase of Buffer, so it’s time for a new version of this key philosophy.
An entrepreneurial mindset focuses on “doing.” Entrepreneurs are on an urgent quest to help the customer and to continue to make their service better and better. They identify problems and solve them.
The entrepreneurial mindset is results-based. Entrepreneurs can't just "do their part” - they have to get results, or they don't make rent.
How can we, each of us, treat our tasks as problems to be solved? How can we provide value at every single turn? How can we focus on results over process? This is how we will continually put the entrepreneurial mindset into practice.
That’s OK.
The entrepreneurial mindset is about approaching problems with curiosity and seeing mistakes as an opportunity for growth instead of something to be feared. And it’s about doing what needs to be done, even if that means taking risks outside of your defined role.
An entrepreneurial mindset might look like: