I find that if I am unemployed it is really bad for my self esteem.
How do you get out of the employee mindset and let go of the needs fulfilled by being an employee?
To be honest this is one, of many, reasons I prefer to find and talk to customers before I even start to build a product. Having people you can talk to and run ideas past and get feedback from makes you focus on not disappointing them and giving you some feeling of needing to be accountable.
That all said, being an entrepreneur can be quite lonely and it is easy to get depressed, so you have to find ways to find balance for yourself and prevent it. I am actually reversed from you in that I find it actually easier being a founder than an employee, but in both cases you just need to find coping mechanisms that work for you.
I wouldn't call this an employee mindset necessarily. For me, employee mindset is:
- Need a specific set of duties defined for you and you are expected to deliver.
- You are not willing to take risks. You like/need that "delusion" of a secure job/paycheck. I put delusion in quotes because as an entrepreneur, I actually think it is more risky being in a job than doing your own thing. But this is not for everyone.
- You like "structure". The job of an employee is to follow structure/processes while one of things that an entrepreneur does is to set those processes/structure in place.
- You don't really care how the business makes money. You just want to get your job done and GTFO. That is employee mentality. Nothing wrong with it but not entrepreneurial.
- You only look at the short term and lower level stuff. That is employee mentality. If you truly want to be an entrepreneur, look at the bigger picture while work on the shorter term targets. For example, if you cannot visualize where you want to be in 12 months, being an entrepreneur will be tough.
- You don't know exactly why YOU want to be an entrepreneur. I call it the "Everyone around me is doing it so why not me" wantra-preneur. Once in a while, every employee at a company thinks about throwing in the towel and starting their own thing. I mean who wouldn't these days, right ? Being an entrepreneur is glorified a lot. But the fact is that most people have no clue WHY they want to do it. It is because they have not defined what it means to THEM. That is employee mentality.
If you can work on these things and you make a conscious effort to improve yourself, you surely can stop the employee mindset. All the best.
Second, think of yourself as working for equity (This is why you should guard your equity from dilution as much as possible, it is real money). I.e. a regular employees usually work for 100% salary and 0 % equity. As a founder you switched this formula, you work for 0 salary and 100% equity.
Third, at least until you have customers, you might want to "hack" your brain (which wants you to be an employee) and join a co-working space with regular employees. This might bring more "regular job" feeling.
Ask yourself why you want to pursue entrepreneurship. Perhaps you can meet those desires while still wearing an employee hat (ie a side project FOR FUN, or lead a new product development project under the umbrella of your employer).