Laurent Notin, Cracking The Entrepreneurship Code

We’re back for another exciting interview on Unlocking Your World of Creativity.

Today, we traveled over to Helsinki, Finland where we spoke with the entrepreneur coach and French national, Laurent Notin.

Laurent is the host of the podcast Inter:views, Cracking The Entrepreneurship Code podcast. He is a Start-up Mentor in several organizations such as Red Brick and Nordic Start-up School.

In this insightful talk about entrepreneurship Laurent and Mark discussed:

• Laurent before he became an entrepreneur coach
• The 3 types of entrepreneurs
• Why entrepreneurs get “bottlenecked”
• What does the term “impact” mean for Entrepreneurs?
• The “role” of being a coach and what success really is

Before he became an entrepreneur coach Laurent asked himself, ”What makes me, me?” What he enjoyed most throughout all his experiences working for others and especially running his own company was working with the people. It was around coaching them, mentoring his staff, training them, and seeing them grow in their role.

“I've always enjoyed those “Aha” moments that people have, where you can see, you can see the sparkles in their eyes. And I thought, that's what I want to reproduce again, and again and again.”

The 3 types of entrepreneurs:

• The first type is those who were born in an entrepreneurial family
• The second is people coming from the corporate world
• The third is a bit of everything - The need to survive

Getting “Bottlenecked”

• We often are in our own way
• Feeling anxious and people start creating all these stories into their heads and then they start asking themselves very stupid questions,
• Complacency

The “role” of being a coach keeps entrepreneurs accountable for themselves.

As an entrepreneur, you have to deal with so many things. You have to wear so many hats. There are so many things you need to learn, from financial management, to marketing, to customer service, to production.

One of the big risks is getting lost in the details because you're stuck in the day-to-day operations. Entrepreneurs forget to take a step back from it, to look at the big picture.

That's where a coach can also help is knowing, “What I need to focus on right now, because this is what matters the most.”

Laurent helps people take that step back and look at the big picture.

He encourages his clients to take a step or two or three backward so they can analyze a situation from a different perspective. He says that's what a coach does. Helps you take those steps back.

One of the keys he points out to becoming a successful entrepreneur is asking for help.

“There is no shame in asking for help. Asking for help will actually help you get there, get where you want to go.”

Lastly, Laurent tells Mark what success really is.

He explains, “it’s not measuring the success of what others do. It’s about measuring success to what you want success to be. Always ask yourself, what is success for you? Entrepreneurship is a journey. When it starts, you never know when it's gonna end. You better enjoy it on the way.”

He says:

• take the time to reflect,
• take the time to celebrate the wins/failures,
• take the time to enjoy it yourself, and
• take the time to take care of yourself

You can learn more about Laurent Notin by checking out his website at