Once upon a time, in the land of high-powered executives and plush corner offices, there lived a man named Richard. Richard was the embodiment of corporate success, with a tailor-made suit for every day of the week and a PA who could schedule his life down to the minute. But one day, Richard decided he’d had enough of the corporate treadmill and set out on his own, blissfully unaware of the storm that was about to hit him.
You see, Richard had grown accustomed to a life where things happened at the snap of his fingers. Deadlines? Yesterday, please. Meetings? Only at the most opulent locations. Coffee? It better be waiting on his desk before he even thought about it. But as he stepped out of his glass tower and into the real world, Richard was in for a rude awakening.
No longer did he have a PA to organise his CV, schedule his calls, or remind him of his meetings. The world of private equity firms and venture capital funds, he thought, would be clamouring at his doorstep, begging for a piece of his brilliance. After all, who wouldn’t want a piece of Richard, the corporate titan?
But alas, reality is often unkind to those who don’t pay it due respect. Richard quickly realised that the world outside his executive bubble wasn’t waiting with bated breath for his arrival. His phone remained eerily silent, his inbox dreadfully empty. The only knocking he heard was the echo of his own expectations crashing down.
In his plush office, Richard had been a big fish in a big pond. But in the ocean of entrepreneurship and investment, he was but a minnow, lost and directionless. It was a harsh lesson in humility, one that saw him grappling with the unfamiliar tools of networking and self-promotion.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Richard could salvage his situation. A little birdie (or was it a LinkedIn notification?) told him about Virtualnonexecs.com, a platform bustling with 18,000 established Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) in 35,000 boardrooms. Here was a chance to swim with the sharks, to put himself in the proverbial “shop window” for thousands of Funds and Founders.
Joining Virtualnonexecs.com, Richard would need to dive headfirst into active networking. He’d have to charm and chat his way through the VNXD Operator Network interface, a far cry from the nod-and-smile routine of his executive days. It was time for him to build his presence, his profile, and most importantly, his humility.
So, let this be a lesson to all the Richards of the world. The fall from corporate grace can be swift and unforgiving. But with a dash of humility, a pinch of networking, and a membership at the right platform, even the mightiest of executives can find their footing in the ever-changing dance of private equity and venture capitalism.
And who knows? With a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, Richard might just make it in this new world. After all, every big fish has to start somewhere. Even if it’s in the unfamiliar waters of entrepreneurship.