Marie-Claire AssekoThis is the fourth installment of a 5-part series titled: From Résumé to Revenue: Turning Skills into a Business That Works.
As an employee-turned-solopreneur learning to sell her own value, this journey has been nothing but easy! It constantly challenges my perspective and forces me to grow comfortable with uncertainty…I feel like I have to evolve lighting fast and I want to take you along for the ride ~ my experience might be useful to you!
You can find this article in French here.
There are neither report cards nor grades in entrepreneurship.
✨ And it’s both frustrating… and liberating.
✅ Executing is easy when someone tells you what to prioritize.
✅ Choosing is uncomfortable, but you learn as you go.
🤔 But knowing if you’ve made the right choice? No one can tell you that.
🧵 Good Student Syndrome Meets Imposter Syndrome
I spent my (young or not-so-young, depending on where you stand) life striving for excellence.
Good grades in school. Promotions and “exceeded expectations” on performance reviews.
At every stage, someone validated that I was heading in the right direction.
I was conditioned to wait for the final grade or a manager’s approval to know if I was “on track.” 🤓
It’s similar to the dopamine rush we feel when we get a “like” on a social media post.
So when I became an entrepreneur, I unconsciously looked for… a report card. Someone, something, somewhere, to validate that I was a “good student of entrepreneurship.” But there was nothing.
- No grade.
- No manager to tell me “good job.”
- No salary scale to measure my progress.
- No colleagues to confirm that my idea was viable.
Nothing but a big, unsettling void and a nagging question:
Does what I’m doing make sense… or am I just kidding myself?
The first few weeks, I did everything “right”:
- I structured my offer.
- I researched and settled on my rates.
- I brainstormed long and hard to create my landing page.
- I posted on LinkedIn.
Then I waited.
For people to contact me. For recognition. For a sign that I had succeeded.
Nothing.
My good student syndrome joined forces with my imposter syndrome, and they took over my thoughts. In a panic, I spent the following few weeks:
- Polishing a website that no one visited.
- Perfecting my offer so I could talk about it better.
- Rewriting my services page as if it were going to be reviewed by an Oscar jury.
Still nothing. Just me. My offer. The market. And uncertainty.
Not because my offer was bad (well, maybe a little). But because I was waiting for a grade that no one was going to give me.
💡 The Most Frustrating (Yet Freeing) Part of Entrepreneurship
In school and professional settings, we are taught to strive for perfection: Do what is “expected” → Deliver according to a predefined standard → Get validation for your efforts.
I realized that in entrepreneurship, there are no standards:
- It’s not a school system. There are no teachers. No official answer key. No universal grading scale.
- It’s not a job in a structured environment. There are no annual evaluations. No quarterly feedback. No systematic raises. No promotions.
There are only hypotheses to test, because:
➡️ You gain NOTHING by doing “the right thing” if no one has asked for it.
➡️ You gain EVERYTHING by doing an imperfect, visible, concrete test.
🎯The market won’t correct your offer: it either responds to your offer or it does not.
And this truth frustrated me at first. Then it liberated me.
- Frustrating because it means you no longer have recurring external validation or predefined benchmarks.
- No one comes to tell you, “Keep going, you’re on the right track.” You have to interpret the signals yourself.
- Silence after your LinkedIn post? What does it mean? That your message is wrong? That your audience isn’t the right one? That the timing isn’t right? You don’t know. And that ambiguity eats away at you.
- Liberating, because it also means you no longer have to wait for someone else’s permission to move forward.
- You no longer have to fit into a mold. You can test. Adjust. Start over. No manager to assess your attempts.
I was learning to navigate without a map. By sight.
And it made me uncomfortable. So uncomfortable.
Especially us, high-achieving, ambitious women who have spent our lives excelling according to other people’s standards. We have been taught to seek approval before validating our own decisions.
But in entrepreneurship, approval (and overall feedback) only comes after you’ve taken the risk.
🔧 Iterating Through Doing
I remembered my classes at HEC Montréal, the incubation workshops I’ve done in recent years. And something I had forgotten came to mind: the importance of business experimentation through practice.
❌ I stopped trying to PROVE THAT I WAS RIGHT.
✅ I started TESTING IF I WAS RIGHT.
Here’s how I changed my relationship with entrepreneurial “success” – It might help you too! ⬇️
1. I replaced “Is it good?” with “Does it work?”
- As an employee, we often ask ourselves, “Did I do what was expected of me?”
- As an entrepreneur, the question becomes: “Is anyone buying? Is anyone contacting me? Is anyone saying yes to me?”
2. I defined my own progress indicators
Since there is no report card, I created one for myself.
Not based on perfection. Based on movement.
➜ How many real conversations did I have this week with potential customers?
➜ How many times did I test a new way of presenting my offer?
➜ How many assumptions did I validate or invalidate?
These metrics don’t measure whether I’m “good.” They measure whether I’m learning.
3. I’ve accepted that rapid iteration beats prolonged reflection
Spending three months waiting for sales before adjusting my message? Not anymore!
I used to think that adjusting meant admitting I was wrong.
But in entrepreneurship, adjusting means collecting data.
It’s not “I failed.” ⇒ It’s “this version didn’t work. Let’s try something else.”
The difference? Huge.
✍️ Try It Yourself
This week, choose ONE action to test.
Not “the smartest.” Not “the most beautiful.”
Just the one that gives you an answer to a question you’ve been pondering.
For instance:
- Ask your audience a targeted question.
- Send an imperfect version of your offer to three people.
- Post a message about what you offer, without filters or trying to downplay it.
You don’t need a grade to validate your approach. You need a signal from your audience.
TL;DR – Shifting Gears 4/5 – No Report Cards in Entrepreneurship
In entrepreneurship:
🌡️ There are no grades.
📉 There is no official failure.
🚀 There are only hypotheses to test.
That’s how I got into the habit of asking myself a question that changed my approach:
What action can I take this week to test a hypothesis, instead of trying to prove my worth?
Not to prove that I’m “the best.”
Not to convince others that I’m “legitimate.”
But to test: does this action resonate with my audience? Does this solution actually help my target customers? Does my service offering convert?
It’s up to you to choose:
- Wait for perfection so you feel ready,
- Or get moving to become readier.
Remember:
It’s not perfection that gets paid. It’s motion.
