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What happens when the habits that helped you build your business begin to hold it back?
In this episode of DBA Chronicles, Dr. Kelly Burichand Dr. Valrie Grant sit down with Stephen Lott II, a DBA scholar and entrepreneurship instructor at Georgia State University, to explore why scaling a business may first require scaling the founder.
With more than 17 years of entrepreneurship, consulting, andfounder development experience, Stephen brings practical insight to his doctoral research on founder scalability. His work explores how founders recognize and interpret the moment when their systems, habits, and ways of thinking no longer fit the businesses they have built.
Stephen also shares his own path; from graduating high school with a 1.79 GPA and starting college at 26 to teaching entrepreneurship and pursuing a doctorate. It is a candid conversation about personal growth, challenging assumptions, and bringing evidence into business decisions.
In this episode, we explore:
- The difference between growing a business and building the capacity to support that growth
- Early signs that a founder has outgrown their current approach
- How wearing every hat can affect service, quality, and decision-making
- Why recognizing a problem matters before choosing a solution
- How the DBA experience is changing Stephen’s approach to entrepreneurship and teaching
- Why perspective and critical thinking matter in an age of readily available information and AI
Whether you are building a business, advising entrepreneurs, or turning professional experience into doctoral research, this conversation offers a question worth considering: What might you need to change about your own approach to support what comes next?
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Until next time!
