For everyone who has read anything I tweeted recently, you have probably seen a trend/theme around the topic of leadership and that pesky "call-to-action" sort of stuff. I know all of that can kind of get annoying, so this time I'm going to be a little more light-hearted and tell the tale of Wes and I's journey towards launching The coIN Loft and my take on leadership.
To start, I'll tell the story of The coIN Loft idea. So here I was, taking a little break from work during the day to catch up on the latest issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, when I stumbled across the article titled: "Solo, But Not Alone." I decided that might not be something too bad, so I continued to read. As I was riffling through it, I started thinking about all the possibilities and then it just hit me, Wes and I need to start one of these "coworking spaces." I showed Wes the article and after about a grand total of 2-3 minutes, we started reading anything and everything that had the term "coworking" in it. Once we got through all the research, we immediately began typing up a business plan/proposal and financial projections for our very own space. Now if you ask me to whom we were going to take all this stuff too, I don't think either one of us could have told you at the time, rather we preferred to take the good ole' "fly by the seat of your pants approach," not because we are young and ignorant, but instead it was simply because we felt that this (launching a coworking space) was something that was very necessary for Delaware, and even better it was very much inline with our vision, through which we operate Verge. When adding all this together, we felt that if we got the word out to the right people, they would help us make coIN Loft a realty and a success, and everything else would kind of fall in place. Luckily, we have been right so far and keep in tuned for our future progress.
So lets talk about leadership. When it comes to leadership or being a leader many people cower to thought of themselves being a leader because they feel they might not have the charisma, or give age old excuse "some people are just born leaders,and others are not." Well, I do believe that some people are leaders, and others are followers, however not because these "leaders" are born with the "leadership gene," instead the people that become leaders are the ones who get the courage to make change. Do Wes and I think we are leaders, well we would probably like to think so, but we just see ourselves as ordinary people following our vision for Delaware, while gaining courage through meeting other folks who share our vision.
Wilmington, DE-Work can be a lonely place for emerging entrepreneurs, many of whom court their clients and ink their deals by phone and e-mail amid the empty cereal bowls on their kitchen tables.