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By Jean-François Cliche I’d be lying if I said that from my earliest days working in insolvency I’ve considered a regular paycheque and three weeks of annual vacation as the best formula for pursuing my goals. To be honest, my generation doesn’t live to work, but simply sees work as a means to an end. But I had convinced myself that I had neither the time nor the resources, much less the ambition, to head up an insolvency firm. In this field of big corporations and fierce competition, I was a new trustee to whom my colleagues referred jokingly as “The Kid,” and I was happy to be in a Monday-to-Friday, 8 a.m.-to-4 p.m. routine. However, life always has surprises in store. At the start of last year, circumstances forced a colleague and me to open our own small insolvency firm. You would think that my roots in the Beauce region of Québec – renowned for its entrepreneurial spirit – would mean that being an entrepreneur is practically in my genes. But this new undertaking feels like one of the most terrifying challenges I’ve had to face in my adult life. The unknown is probably the biggest difficulty, since my entire career has heretofore been made up of schedules, time sheets and biannual evaluations. I realize that these first lines seem pessimistic, but that’s really just me retracing those first steps in this new adventure that, for more than nine months, has allowed me to become an entrepreneur and, first and foremost, a better insolvency professional. So, I would like to invite you to follow me on CAIRPblog, as this post is the first in a series recounting my experiences — both my successes and my failures – as I venture into the life of a new business. My story is for anyone who’s ever asked, “Me? An entrepreneur?”