Entrepreneurs may have more in common than you think.
After spending nearly 10 years of his life writing and reporting on local and national news, Jason Feifer was offered the opportunity to step into the role of editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine and work with founders from all walks of life.
“I started to spend all my time with entrepreneurs, and I started to think differently about myself and the world around me,” Jason says.
For Jason, making the leap to Entrepreneur was a natural progression, and it became his “wouldn’t go back moment,” which he details further in his latest book, Build For Tomorrow.
Jason spends his days working closely with entrepreneurs in every industry, from Richard Dickson the president of Mattel, Inc., to Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show, and he witnesses more similarities between them than differences.
“I learned all entrepreneurs must do great work with the understanding that you are going to have to change. Whatever you are most comfortable with, or think is driving your success, is going to change in ways you cannot [predict], but you must anticipate these changes,” Jason says.
In order for companies to remain profitable in the long term, Jason advises to actually “build the expectation of change into your business and into the decisions you make.”
The inevitable change for business owners in 2023 doesn’t have to be daunting though. “As you face economic challenges you will be forced to come up with solutions that ultimately reveal new ways to create value for your consumer,” Jason says.
These times of economic uncertainty leave the most room for innovation and opportunity.
“Every founder is going to be worried about how all of these economic pressures are going to impact them and their business, but everybody else is facing these challenges too, which means they’ll need new people to solve their problems,” Jason says.
In the new year, Jason encourages business owners to do more to connect to their consumers by strengthening their relationship with the media.
“You have to be up for a story that is going to serve the audience, because nobody cares about success stories—they don’t help people,” Jason says. “Problem-solving stories help people, challenging stories help people, and sharing the hard stuff helps people.”
Tune in to the full Shopify Masters episode to hear Jason Feifer dive into the relationship between business and the media, and share his wealth of knowledge after working closely with some of the most successful founders to date.
