I've interviewed twenty-five women for the "One Entrepreneur's Journey" series.  I was able to talk with them about their successes (and failures) along the path of entrepreneurship, and I can say that every single one has influenced me in some way, all for the better.

I thought I'd wrap the series by sharing my own responses to the questions I asked each of them.  I hope that our collective experiences and advice will help you somehow.  A one-degree turn might be all it takes to change the course of a business, and within this series, I think you'll find many nuggets of valuable insight that might help you make that turn.  I know I have.

What's my business?

I definitely think I'm a serial entrepreneur.  I always have more than one project going on at any given point and usually a couple coming down the pike.  I recently stopped trying to cubbyhole myself with a title (the only one that fits, really, is entrepreneur, but I can't get used to it).  Instead, I just talk in terms of projects, and I currently have two that are humming along.

First, I have Upstart Smart (this site), which is essentially a resource for entrepreneurs and small business owners.  In a nutshell, I've worked hard for many years to try to establish financial independence through my business.  I believe entrepreneurship is a path to self-reliance.  I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck.  I want to survive on my own.  More importantly, I want to thrive.  Entrepreneurship, I believe, can help you create your own destiny.  You can do something you love, something that completely lights you up and that you can talk about until the end of time (boring your family and friends to the point of gouging their eyes out or sticking pencils in their ears), and if you do it right, you can earn a substantial living and have a lot of flexibility over your life.  The trick is in doing it right.  I've had to learn a lot of things the hard way, through trial and error, through mistakes.  I hope that Upstart Smart will help me and other entrepreneurs through our shared experiences.  If it will save us a painful or expensive step here or there, then it's done its job.

Second, I have Brown Bug Project (I think soon to be Give Back Project, stay tuned), which provides web design and marketing services to the entrepreneurial, solo entrepreneurial, mom-and-pop, work-at-home, small business crowd.  Basically, it was started as a way to offer websites that looked good, were a true representation of the people they represented, were easy to maintain, didn't cost what a car costs, and were simple, clean, and easy to navigate.

That's my business...in a nutshell...right now.

How did I get my start as an entrepreneur?

I think I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, although it took me a while to put a name on it.  I can remember at probably 10-years-old "playing store" with one of my sisters.  We made up names for ourselves, of course, and I was always Jessie Montgomery.  I thought it had a powerful ring to it.  I'm sure we would dress up in our "business suits," and I distinctly remember using the JCPenney catalog as some important business document that I had on my makeshift desk.  I had these images of powerhouse women, specifically J.C. Wiatt in Baby Boom.

This story makes me laugh now.  My opinions and perceptions of business have changed tremendously, and I'm certainly no powerhouse woman bossing the men around.  The self-reliance thing, though, that strength and independence for women, is still just as important to me.  I think about my grandmothers.  My maternal grandmother, who just had her seventieth birthday this year, was a farmer and ran right alongside the men her entire life.  My paternal grandmother, who died several years ago, was a manager at Bill's Dollar Store and a preacher's wife, and I thought that was powerful, too.  I saw these women, whether on TV or in my own life, running the show, and that's what I wanted to do.

What's my weakness?

I take on too much, burn myself out, and then take on too little as a result.  I have a tendency to over-obligate myself, more so to my own demands than that of my clients, to the point that I end up physically exhausted, whether by over-doing it or by becoming so wired up and restless that I can't sleep or turn off my brain.  I have to be very intentional about not over-extending myself, because when I do, I end up on a roller coaster of feast and famine.  I want to do it all, and I want to do it all right now.  I don't think it's about impatience or believing that I'm super-human and can do it all.  It's just that I'm so excited by opportunities that I can't wait to get started.

What's my strength?

I can get things done.  I can find all the moving parts that have to be built within a project, prioritize them or arrange them in the most efficient and effective order, break down each part into a series of steps, jump in, and get the entire thing built very quickly.  I remember that I used to amaze my accountability partner with my ability to build websites, marketing plans, or whatever needed to be built fast enough to make someone's head spin.  I think she's gotten used to it.  It's not impressive anymore.  It's a fun craft, though, and I've used it over and over in my ventures as an entrepreneur, and it's very handy when building websites.  I definitely believe in the motto: Talk today, done tomorrow.  That, of course, only feeds my weakness.

What am I getting right?

I'm finally figuring out to keep things simple.  I used to think that the more complicated plan would be the one that worked.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Simplicity is required in everything - your to-do list, your focus, the actions you take on a daily basis within your business, your website, everything.  The 80/20 Principle is true.  Cut the fat.

What do I struggle with?

Two things.

Number one, the revenue line.  Where is it, dang it?  Julie Morgenstern wrote about it.  I find it to be elusive.  She said, "Everything you spend your time on should be assessed in terms of its proximity to the revenue line, the point at which your company is actually making or saving money."  She says you need to dance close to it and that "the largest portion of your time should be spent on tasks that are, at most, one or two steps" away from it.  I think that's a very specific set of activities.  It's some mix of marketing and promotion.  Finding the right mix and then staying there, doing those same tasks over and over with blind faith, that's the tricky part.  As I've mentioned in other writings, I don't know that magic formula just yet, but I dance as close to it as possible, and I get a little closer with every new lead and every new client.

Number two, balance, but don't we all?

What do I wish I would have known earlier on?

That it's about getting closer and closer to the truest and best version of yourself, that you won't get that right immediately out of the gate, that every mistake gets you closer to it, that when you feel your heart fluttering with excitement you're close, and that sometimes you have to be the uglier version of yourself to figure out that that's not who you want to be.  Your business is a representation of that.  Find yourself, be yourself, find success.

What's my most important lesson so far as a entrepreneur?

It's about movement, imua (moving forward with strong momentum).  Just start.  You'll gain momentum and overcome inertia.  Fall and get up.  It's in the doing.  Don't get too caught up in mistakes and minutia.  Keep moving.

What's my best advice for new entrepreneurs?

Get down to finding customers and clients early.  Make that what it's all about, finding them and becoming an invaluable asset to them.