I have a confession to make. I watch that video from the ECO home page almost every day. It’s about creating a movement and the role of the First Follower. When that first guy comes over to dance with the lone leader, I know that’s me. I’m ECO’s first follower.

I’m not the only ECO follower. ECO’s founder, Linda Hughes, has a long list of loyal supporters to her efforts to create a mentorship platform for entrepreneurs. People are drawn to Linda and ECO because she brings something of value to entrepreneurs and because she always puts the interests of entrepreneurs above all else. Timing in the market is also good, as seen by the growth in visitors, subscribers and content on the ECO site.

After discussions for months, I finally decided it was time to join Linda as her first staff member and Chief Operating Officer. This is a role I’ve played before in a startup. But this time it’s different and it’s because of Linda. She’s that rare great leader who is a blend of perseverance and humility. But even knowing that I’m working with Linda and with entrepreneurs around the world, I still feel like I just jumped out of an airplane.

Evolving from one employee to two is a big step for Linda. It means that very few of the tools she’s used to run a company of one will scale to two. It means taking time away from business operations to train a new person on key functions. It means giving away part of the control of the company, no matter if the 2nd employee is paid in salary, wage or equity. Linda just jumped out of the airplane too.

To other First Followers, I recommend patience and understanding.  All company founders have warts in how they’ve run their company up until now. Heck, we have warts too. Linda and I sat down when she hired me and we both laid out all of our shortcomings. No surprises later. We now know what we’re both getting even more so than before. We also spent a long time getting to know each other to understand exactly what to expect from the other person. As Linda and I move forward in the next few weeks, my plan is to approach everything with an open mind & open heart. There is much I can learn from Linda and there’s much she can learn from me too.

Now let’s focus on growing the entrepreneurship movement!