I’ve gone through three stages of entrepreneurship so far.
Stage 1: As an operator, I acted as a bottleneck in my company by having my hands dirty in everything. It felt weird to call myself a CEO.
Stage 2: As a manager, I let other people run things in my company and I focused on the big decisions. It felt good to call myself the CEO.
Stage 3: As a collaborator, I enable other founders to build their businesses by injecting capital and providing strategic advice. I’m more hands on their business plans than any other investor so it feels weird to call myself as an investor at this stage; I’m more like a co-founder.
The fourth (and probably not the last) stage of entrepreneurship evolution for me would be to work as a collaboration manager where my expertise would help multiple businesses to flourish together.
It will feel good to call myself as an investor then.