Life Cycle of a Business

30th October was the final night of TNT Dance, the Salsa club I co-founded 10 years ago with a dear friend, a club which made significant contributions to the London Salsa Scene over the years. To celebrate, the current managing director opened its doors to the London Salsa community to join us on the final dance and to remember as much of the good times we had spent dancing and learning and growing as possible. It was a beautiful night, full of faces I had not seen in years, full of hugs I had not given or received for some time, and full of beautiful, fun and hilarious memories of dances and conversations shared Tuesday after Tuesday after Tuesday when our night was on.

The next morning, I could not help reflecting on the other side of the story, the challenging times I had personally experienced during those 10 years, and if there had been some kind of knowledge I might have needed that could have helped me live those personal challenges in a gentler way.

It turns out that one of the crucial things would have been to truly understand the life cycles of a business, the phase the club was in when it started, how long it could remain at infancy, what that meant, what would need to happen to take it forward to the next level, and what the pace of growth really is for a business of this kind which relies on forging relationships and building a community when social media was still used for chatting with friends. It could have helped me relax, see it for the endurance marathon that this endeavour would have been, 10 years ago when it had all started, and the realisation that it is not just the practical side of running a business that makes the business grow, but the attitude, the relevant mindset, and the adjustment and inner alignment that needs to take place at every moment for the endeavour to succeed. I would have gradually been able to see how much I would have needed to adapt from an employee mindset to the business mindset to make it a success.

I know I am not alone to not have had this knowledge or understanding when it could have helped me the most, as I have seen it already in many of my starting entrepreneurs and solopreneurs clients of the every day business world who love their product or service but have not yet made the shift, and are suffering because of it. Also, there is always the question of how do you marry something that can be so artistic, dance in this instance, with the sometimes dryness of the practical side of doing business? What happens if someone is so in love with their product and are struggling to separate themselves from the service?

If you are among those people who have taken their passion in their hands and are looking to make a living out of it but are challenged or overwhelmed by what the decision has brought in front of you, and you would like to have these conversations now and not in 10 years time as a hindsight exercise, I would love to have this conversation with you. Do reach out and let's see where things are and where you want to take them. You will not only be able to save time and your business, you will also save your peace of mind.

To benefit from professional support, you can reach me at constantina@thelantern.uk

Constantina Stamou

Constantina Stamou is a certified Strategic Intervention Coach, has trained with the Robbins-Madanes coaching school, is an NLP Master Practitioner, has attended Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery, and has a PhD in how we change the way we put sentences together as we grow older. Her work experience includes tutoring at her university, working for a charity, and entrepreneurship which has so far translated into the TNT Dance Salsa Club in London and her own Reformer Pilates Studio at Kensington Olympia, London, where she had the pleasure of working with her team of four teachers.