Key Takeaways:
[00:23:25] Be resilient, but flexible. When conditions change, entrepreneurs need to be prepared to rethink their businesses. Too many dismiss long-term trends as minor roadblocks or cyclical dips—so pay attention to the signs, Stevenson urges.[00:24:35] Be smart about passion projects. Starting a second business isn’t for everybody, and some entrepreneurs get sucked into thinking they can turn a personal passion into a successful venture. Stevenson says that passion for a business idea is necessary, but not sufficient—the fundamentals have to be there, too, for a startup to succeed.
[00:26:20] Join a community—or a few communities. Entrepreneur groups and even informal get-togethers of four or five people with similar challenges can be a vital way to share ideas, problems and advice, Stevenson says. Don’t be afraid to get involved and reach out.
Responding quickly to change
By 2019, The Idea Suite, an innovation consulting firm that helps clients develop new products, brands, services and experiences, was rolling along. Just four years after its startup, co-founders Fiona Stevenson and Shelli Baltman were literally turning away prospective clients—they were that busy. They were on a plane practically every week, heading to in-person meetings with clients or conducting research in faraway markets. And then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And suddenly, Stevenson recalls, “we were grounded.”
“Suddenly, it was like, oh my gosh, we have to pivot our entire business to a virtual one,” says Stevenson. “That was a massive challenge, which we attacked pretty quickly. … We changed our offering to become completely virtual and then went back to clients whose projects had been postponed and got things back online.”
You might think that Stevenson and Baltman, having pulled off a major reset of their company, would take a break, right? No way. In fact, within a couple of years, while the pandemic continued to rage on, they did something that might have surprised even themselves.
They started up another company.
Reading the “signs”
Stevenson says that entrepreneurs must pay close attention to the big trends shaping the business landscape—and look both for risks and for opportunities. That sign-reading, in fact, was the genesis of their second company, Energy for Growth, founded in 2020.
After they successfully moved their innovation consulting operations completely online, they noticed how the pandemic environment was negatively affected the health of both themselves and their customers. She and Baltman saw an opportunity “to really address this burnout and help to energize teams who are really struggling, and we got super-excited about that.”
Energy for Growth helps clients build team energy and drive personal and business growth through a structured 12-week program, as well as through mission, vision and values workshops and capability programs. It’s “quite different from our core offering,” Stevenson explains, which is one reason they incorporated it as a separate entity from The Idea Suite.
But Energy for Growth also leveraged what she and Baltman see as one of their existing value propositions. Clients often “talked about our energy,” she says. “They talked about [how] ‘the whole process of working on a project with you brings us energy.’ So we always though it was our secret sauce.”
Striking a balance
Stevenson acknowledges that the decision to start a new company was “driven by passion and emotion” rather than pure business logic. But it wasn’t completely out of left field. When they founded Energy for Growth, how long the pandemic would last and whether business conditions would recover were real and pressing questions. Their thinking was that “if the world stays in this pandemic stream … and this is the new reality, then [Energy for Growth] is going to be our big bet.”
Running two organizations at once was a big challenge. Stevenson says they kept most of their resources dedicated to their core innovation business, which meant that the bulk of the work—especially developing the programs—fell to the cofounders. To make time for Energy for Growth, they had to turn away work for The Idea Suite more often, even though the innovation agency was recovering as clients became familiar with the virtual environment.
The landscape has, of course, changed dramatically since 2020, and Stevenson and Baltman’s two businesses have changed, too. As the world moved back to normal, their innovation agency enjoyed a record year in 2023, while Energy for Growth has shifted towards fewer structured programs and more personal appearances and keynote speaking opportunities, for which Stevenson says there is still strong demand.
Their passion for energizing teams hasn’t waned. They love the work and Energy for Growth remains a kind of insurance policy. “I hate to say this, but when I talk to futurists, you know, there could be another pandemic on the horizon,” Stevenson adds. “If we had to go back to that kind of situation, we might actually see more need for [Energy for Growth’s] offering.
Keeping the passion
Starting up and running two different organizations has been a “huge investment,” she says. But it has also been a way for them to stay passionate about what they are doing—which is absolutely vital to Stevenson.
“If you are a service-based [company] and you’re not serving your clients with that real passionate energy, they can tell, even subconsciously,” she says.
But she also cautions that entrepreneurs need to be smart about following their passion. “Your business is kind of your baby,” she says, and when things go wrong it’s natural, “but it’s really important to be reading the signs. As soon as you see something suggesting that the current offering isn’t working, that’s when you really need to think about [your] business.”
Following your passion by creating a new company isn’t for everybody. Stevenson notes how some people who love cooking decide to become a chef or open a restaurant—a notoriously difficult business—only to realize later that “oh, it should have stayed a hobby.” Yes, it’s good to follow your passion, Stevenson says, but “it doesn’t need to be a whole new business.” She recommends “starting with a bit of experimentation and seeing [whether] as I put more of my time into this, do I enjoy it? Does it feel good? And then, also, is the market responding? Does it feel like there’s a demand here?”
If the answer to those questions is yes, then her advice is simple: don’t give up, and learn from adversity. “Persisting through the pandemic, persisting through obstacles, persisting [through] a bad year—it’s how you can use that kind of crumbling, if you will,” she says. “Sometimes things need to die in order for something really exciting to be born.”