Hippie CEO Life #19 - It’s OK to be Uniquely You
August 19, 2022
Trying to be all things, for all people, you will never truly know yourself.
When starting something new, a company, a team, a personal brand, it’s very seductive to want to be all things, to all people.
The approach does seem logical, the more potential customers we have, the better chance we have of success.
But, what ends up happening is that you appear to the market just like everyone else, so if you the same as all the other offerings, you will be forced to compete on speed and price — not that you can’t be successful here but competing with a crowded marketplace on who can do it for the cheapest is an incredibly difficult game to win longterm.
When we started 33 Sticks in 2013, we were faced with this very real dilemma. With no money coming in and no prospects in our sales pipeline, we struggled with the choice: do we try to be everything for everyone (maybe just for a short time to get some money in the bank) -OR- do we stay true to our principles? We selected to do the later after concluding that “if we compromise now at what point will we stop compromising?”
Being unapologetically who we are, has allowed us to standout in an incredibly crowded and noisy marketplace but more importantly, it has allowed us to attract the type of employees and clients that we want to work with.
