3 minute read
THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT THINGS I’VE LEARNT FROM RUNNING THREE BUSINESSES AT THE SAME TIME
The four most important things I’ve learnt from running three businesses at the same time - serial founder, Dan Murray-Serter
I’ve co-founded three very different businesses that I’m running right now - Heights, Infamous Media & Foundrs:
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1. Heights, a brain health and performance company - a venture funded startup, which is where I work full time from Monday - Friday. Since we launched in January we’ve hired 10 employees - all remotely.
2. Infamous Media, the producers of the UK’s most popular entrepreneurial podcast, Secret Leaders. A completely creative endeavour that I work on at weekends, which for me counts as ‘active rest and recovery’ to the working week.
3. Foundrs, an invite-only community of over 300 of the UK’s top entrepreneurs who share similar beliefs. The journey began 7 years ago and is my way of giving back to the community.
It’s an on-going learning process but the four key things I’ve learnt are hiring with honesty, prioritisation, identifying personal values and the importance of clarity.
Hiring with honesty During the hiring process at Infamous Media for our Head of Podcasts role, which Will Stolerman now heads up - both myself and producer Rich Martell made it very clear that Heights gets 99% of my time. It’s important to provide clarity and honesty - not only when you’re hiring but for all your employees. For me, I look for my employees to grow and l ead - which is why I look for autonomy, good decisionmaking skills, and trusting individuals . I learnt a lot about delegation and trust through the experience of building Foundrs.
Prioritisation in business I use a time tracker to see where I’m spending most of my time so I can work out whether I’m being productive (or not).
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, written by Stephen Covey, introduced me to ‘ The Eisenhower Matrix ’ - which helps me to decide and prioritize my tasks based on urgency and importance whilst sorting out less urgent and less important tasks. I try to make sure as much as my work as possible stays in the “Urgent Not Important” quadrant.
Identify your personal values I think the most important thing you can do as a founder is to spend time identifying your personal values, and from there your company values. This enables you to hire correctly and build a company culture where people thrive.
I value mental health, humility, purposing potential with purpose and initiative - all of these values are at the core of all my three companies.
My advice for founders would be to spend time figuring out your personal values, and from there, your company values in order to hire correctly. I’ve learnt from my mistakes but one thing I’ll say is don’t rush the growth process - by aligning with your values you can create a company and a culture that not only allows employees to thrive, but most importantly perform at their best.
I won’t lie and say it’s been easy to learn what my values are, it’s taken me years.
Scale and impact come from clarity of purpose For me, my intrinsic motivation is community and to make an impact and help others in any way that I can. Therefore, it’s clear to me why one business, Heights, focuses on brain care after my own experience with insomnia and anxiety, and curing it through nutrition, why Secret Leaders showcases insights from experienced founders for free, for all to hear. And is why Foundrs is a community designed for ‘founders breaking new ground without breaking themselves’.
I have real clarity on my passions. I’m always learning, and growing which is when I’m happiest.
I’m looking forward to the journey moving forward, but know that I’ll always stick to what my core values are. They’ll always be with me and will inform all of my business decisions.
