After studying some of the one million business owners who use Shopify, we’ve discovered that founder types tend to fall into one of five groups. Which one are you? Start withour personality quiz.
Hold on, let’s overthink this. No loose strings or stray decimals in your world, Cartographer. Everything is in its place. While you’re motivated by what you love, there’s nothing romantic about your approach. You’re all business when it comes to careful planning, risk analysis, and testing over and over until everything’s perfect.
Cartographer strengths
You deliver your elevator pitch with confidence. You have answers to every question. You’ve crunched numbers, done your market research, and developed detailed crisis management plans for every worst-case scenario. You’re ready!
Your “measure twice, cut once” approach to life gives you a leg up as a business owner, especially in the early days when every detail is your responsibility. As a solopreneur (just the way you like it), you only answer to yourself. Other signs might struggle with this lack of outside accountability, but you havenatural discipline, Cartographer. Your ability to develop clear systems will only help you as you scale.
Does this sound like you? Take our poll:
Cartographer opportunities ️
Put down the calculator for a minute. Avoid risk altogether and you might miss out on exciting opportunities. Sure, you’ve run the numbers and your business makes sense on paper. Butdoes it bring you joy? Can you picture yourself in this business for the long term? Leap before you look every once in a while—it’s good for the heart.
Others will look to you for guidance because you seem to have it all together.
Others will look to you for guidance because you seem to have it all together. And, you’d be a great mentor if you allow yourself to open up a bit. Your solo nature is by design—letting others in means not controlling everything. If you want growth, though, Cartographer, collaboration and people management is likely in your future. You can’t do everything forever. We know you’re good—just notthatgood. Start slow: delegate the little things. (And please breathe.)
Watch out for when things don't go exactly as planned. Stress is an inevitability with entrepreneurship, so be sure you are equipped with coping strategies tohelp you de-stress.
Your best business bets?Cartographers like you are perfect for the required tedium and precision of handmade businesses where you can control every aspect of the product and business from start to finish.Get the full list of ideas.
Fictional Cartographer: Chidi Anagonye
“It turns out life isn’t a puzzle that can be solved one time and it’s done,” saysThe Good Placeresident Chidi Anagonye. “You wake up every day, and you solve it again.” Sound about right, Cartographer? Chidi’s religion is ethics and rules, and it’s his mission to recruit followers to his church of one, even in the afterlife. He chose this path out of passion, though, and it shows—he’s undeterred, even as his hopeless disciple fails to grasp the concepts.
I’m just not a ‘new experience’ kind of guy.
Chidi Anagonye,The Good Place
“I’m just not a ‘new experience’ kind of guy,” Chidi says. But in the face of uncertainty—err, dying—he adapted, in true Cartographer form. Though he’s made a business out of teaching Eleanor to be a decent person, he’s not an entrepreneur. We’d have to admit that his work ethic and attention to detail would serve him well in this role, though. For Chidi, we’d suggest an online storeselling ebooks and online coursesto spread his message of goodness beyond the heathen in his own house.
Cartographer of the animal kingdom: the beaver
The industrious beaver is the DIY queen of the animal kingdom. These large water rodents build intricate homes, showing off their chops as skilled woodworkers. As ambassadors of the Cartographer contingent, they are hardworking and disciplined. The nocturnal beaver mimics its human counterparts—a Cartographer can’t sleep until the job is done.
Explore the other signs:Mountaineer|Trailblazer|Outsider|Firestarter
Click to share on Twitter:I’m the Cartographer: dependable, organized, disciplined. What’s your entrepreneur personality? Take the quiz by @Shopify
Illustrations by Alice Mollon