3 Bold Moves Every Entrepreneur Should Make This Year

If you’re building a business in 2025, playing it safe is the fastest way to get left behind.

Having had a front-row seat to companies that have soared — and others that have stalled — I can tell you with certainty: Success rarely hinges on luck, timing or even market conditions. Those may influence the journey, but they don’t determine the destination. The biggest differentiator, time and time again, is bold leadership.

The founders who win aren’t always the smartest or the most well-funded. They’re the ones who move first, make decisions with conviction and aren’t afraid to break things in the pursuit of building something better. They lean into uncertainty instead of retreating from it. They execute while others analyze. Meanwhile, those who fall behind tend to hesitate. They wait for more data, better timing, clearer signals or external validation. And by the time they act, the window of opportunity has already closed.

In today’s climate, bold beats big. The environment is too dynamic and the competition too relentless for anyone to succeed by playing defense. The entrepreneurs who thrive are the ones willing to bet on themselves — and act like it.

Here are three bold moves we believe will define successful entrepreneurship in 2025 and beyond:

Related: The Benefits of Bold Leadership and How Leaders Can Develop a Bold Mindset

1. Make AI your co-founder

Most founders are still using AI like a toy — something to experiment with at the edges. The smartest ones? They’re going all-in, treating AI as a strategic co-founder baked into the core of their business model.

This isn’t about plugging ChatGPT into your website or automating customer support. We’re talking about AI-driven pricing models that adapt in real time, predictive hiring systems that flag your next top performer before they apply, autonomous lead scoring that prioritizes your highest-converting prospects and real-time behavioral analytics that anticipate what your customers want before they do.

This is about building an intelligent engine behind your company — one that gets sharper, faster and more insightful every single day. A company that learns while it grows. A business that doesn’t just scale but compounds.

Founders who embrace AI not just as a tool but as an operating system will outperform their peers on speed, precision and capacity. And in a world where the margin for error is shrinking, those advantages stack up fast.

Don’t wait for an AI playbook to be written. Write your own. Build with it now, or risk falling behind permanently.

2. Break the traditional funding playbook

The VC route has been glorified for decades. But in 2025, it’s no longer the holy grail, and it’s definitely not the only game in town.

More and more founders are rejecting the default path. They’re bootstrapping with profitability in mind from day one. They’re turning to equity crowdfunding to rally loyal customers into early investors. They’re experimenting with revenue-based financing, where repayment flexes with actual performance. Some are even exploring tokenized assets and community-led investment models that prioritize long-term alignment over short-term valuation hype.

This shift isn’t just about avoiding dilution. It’s about staying in control. It’s about building companies that reflect the values and vision of the founder — not just the expectations of a cap table.

In a world where capital is being democratized and distribution is increasingly direct, the most agile entrepreneurs are finding new ways to fund their growth, and they’re doing it without giving up the steering wheel.

If your funding source controls your destiny, then it’s not really your company. Rethink your capital stack with the same creativity you bring to product and brand.

Related: 5 Risk-Taking Lessons From Founders Who Bet Big and Won

3. Rethink your end game — now

Most founders start with a product idea. Fewer start with a clear vision of where they want the journey to end.

That worked in an era of frothy markets, where acquisition offers flowed and IPOs were aspirational but attainable. But we’re not in that era anymore. Capital is tighter. Buyers are more disciplined. And exits don’t just happen — they’re engineered.

If you want freedom later, get intentional now. Whether your goal is to build a sellable company, transition to private equity, create a long-term cash-flow machine or step away entirely and let the business run without you, you need to reverse-engineer that path from the start. Your endgame should shape everything from your hiring strategy to your operating model to your pricing.

Running a business without an exit strategy is like setting sail without a destination. You’ll work hard, but you might not end up anywhere that matters.

Design with the end in mind, and don’t be afraid to challenge what “success” is supposed to look like.

Related: Make That Bold Move Now — and Avoid Looking Back With Regret

Entrepreneurship in 2025 doesn’t reward hesitation. It rewards courage, clarity and a willingness to make bold, sometimes uncomfortable decisions — long before the market tells you it’s safe to do so.

The founders who thrive in this era won’t be the ones who waited for permission. They’ll be the ones who acted with urgency, redefined the rules and built businesses that reflected the future, not the past.

Still playing by the old rules?

Your competitors hope you are.

Ready to break through your revenue ceiling? Join us at Level Up, a conference for ambitious business leaders to unlock new growth opportunities.