It takes three to five years to create a sustainable business which is a long time to commit your life to something. If you don’t love what you’re doing, it can get very difficult to sustain it that is why understanding personal purpose should be tied to the kind of business that you’re going to do. Mike McCausland, CEO and founder of Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs (LIFE), is focused on helping entrepreneurs all the way from what’s a good business idea through launch, growth, scaling, and exit, or what is called the entrepreneurship journey, from end to end. Mike also talks about another project they’re launching called local entrepreneurship ecosystems which are entrepreneurship networks or group endeavors trying to crack the code on how to cause economic engines to start growing and what ecosystems impact the whole community.
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We’re incredibly fortunate that we have Mike McCausland, Founder and CEO of Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs. Mike, thanks for being on the show.
Thanks, Bob. I’m excited to be here.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
The Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs is really focused on helping entrepreneurs, all the way from what’s a good business idea through launch growth, scaling, exit, we call it the entrepreneurship journey from end to end. I’ve learned that 99% of the population has no understanding of their purpose. Understanding personal purpose should be tied to the kind of business that you’re going to do. If you don’t love what you’re doing, life can get very difficult in a business. Three to five years to create a sustainable business, that’s a long time to commit your life to something you don’t love doing.
We serve entrepreneurs on this end-to-end entrepreneurship journey. The other thing we’re doing and a lot more of is launching local entrepreneurship ecosystems. We live in Colorado Springs, I think is number nine. Denver’s number five, the Denver Boulder Corridor in entrepreneurship ecosystems in the US. Our market is international and so we’re launching ecosystems all over the world. We actually have seven this year. Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Kenya, Jordan and a relational ecosystem in Rome, Italy of a global network called Open.
I think about that. I would love to take and get an ecosystem in my area. How do they go about getting you to come?
It’s a lot of relational networks. We’ve been all over the world. I ran a nonprofit that was in 150 countries over fifteen years. We ended up shutting it down to move everything to for profit operations because we just believe it’s a better model. The relational aspect is how we figure out where to go and how to help people. Entrepreneurship ecosystems are a big focus worldwide. Some of the leading players in that space, Kauffman Foundation, which many are aware of, but Kauffman just does the United States. They’re in 180 cities. 1 Million Cups, maybe something you’re familiar with, that’s one of their programs or that they’ve produced. The Global Entrepreneurship Network works globally. The Endeavor Global Group is out there globally. The World Economic Forum is out there.
One of the big questions that people are trying to crack the code on is how do you create an entrepreneurship ecosystem and cause economic that engine to start growing? Every mayor in the world ever in every city is interested. Ecosystems are very local. You can’t do a US ecosystem. You can’t do a continental ecosystem. It’s...
