June 6

Could You Lead A Startup?

 

ducks

Seriously, what it’s like to lead a startup

Let’s start with the fact that right now it’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m still very much awake. I’m excited about what I’m doing and concerned that I’m wasting time typing these thoughts but, since so many people ask me what it’s like to be an entrepreneur and fund your own startup (or launch a funded startup), I thought I’d provide future truth seekers a simple link to this page. So, here we go… I’ll start once again with it’s very difficult to sleep most nights of the week. There is just too much to do! Weekends don’t mean anything to me anymore. They are just the same as weekdays but, with a bit more extracurricular intent natively embedded into the concept. Closing a round of financing is not a relief. It means more people are depending on you to turn their investment into 25x what they gave you. It’s not greedy, that’s reality. And that is if you are lucky enough to be getting a salary as part of the deal.

1. Find balance

You are so into what you are doing and accomplishing that your mind is constantly thinking about what’s up around the next bend and what can we do to grow faster and help more Clients achieve their goals. It’s very difficult to “ urn it off”. But at the same time, television, movies and sometimes even vacations become so mundane that they pale in comparison with the challenges ahead and the thought that your company’s future might be sitting in your inbox waiting for you at this very moment.

Often you feel guilty when you’re doing something you enjoy that is not providing value to the company’s stakeholders. Only through years of wrestling with this internal struggle do you recognize how the concept of “balance” as an art form just as important as any other skill you could ever hope to develop. You begin to see how valuable creativity is and that you must think differently not only to win, but to identify the biggest opportunity and capitalize on it. You recognize that you get your best ideas when you’re not staring into a screen. You get immediate returns on healthy distractions like dog walks and running, rowing, rock climbing and snowboarding. You learn to respect the humble duck who paddles like crazy under the water yet is calm and collect on the surface where everyone can see you. You learn the hard way that if you lose your cool you lose. You constantly ask yourself if you are changing the world in a good way? Are people’s lives better for having me in it? You are creative and when you have an idea it has no filter before it bursts into reality. This feeling is one reason why you can’t do anything else. You create value out of thin air and it’s addictive. You can’t turn it off.

2. Social impact

You start to see that the noun “entrepreneur” is a personality type. It becomes more and more difficult to talk to your old friends, family members and the common man since they are not risking the same things you are. They are typically content with not pushing themselves or putting it all out there in the public with the likelihood of failure staring right back at you everyday. You start to turn a lot of your conversations with relatives into how they might exploit opportunities for profit. Those close to you will view your focus, your determination and your persistence as something completely different because they simply don’t get it. You can’t blame them. They won’t understand unless they’ve experienced it themselves. It’s why you will gravitate towards other entrepreneurs. You will find reward in helping other entrepreneurs. If I can help you with anything, let me know.

3. The team

Your job is to create a vision, a mission, a culture, to get the right people on the bus and to inspire. When you look around at a team that believes in the vision as much as you do and trusts that you will do the right thing, it’s an amazing feeling that’s not easy to describe. The exponential productivity derived from hiring truly great people will always amaze you. It’s why finding the right team is the most difficult thing you will do but also the most important. This learning affects your life significantly. You will no longer settle for mediocre anymore because you will see what is possible when you hold out for the best and push to find people that are the best. You won’t have an issue with being brutally honest with people when they can’t live up to expectations or simply refuse to raise the bar for themselves. You start to recognize that you’re a leader and that you have to lead or you can’t be involved with it the venture at all. You turn down acquisition offers because you want to run the show and you feel like your team is the best in the world and you can achieve anything with some good focused work.

4. Quitting is not an option

You have to be willing to sleep in your car and laugh about it. You have to be able to laugh at many things because you must focus on the positive lest you slip up and what you visualize does happen. Never dwell on the negative. Imagine working for a goal for over three years and then have to throw it out  because you realize in a split second of genius that it was the wrong approach. You understand that when your team is having fun and enjoys a good laugh, you won’t crash and burn. You learn to love the journey more than the destination and you’ll look forward to what you do everyday even during the darkest hours.

5. Go for it

People will tell you not to get on that roller coaster ride again given the highs and lows and you may even share that advice but, when it comes to it, you’ll jump right back on that ride because being stable and calm all the time isn’t exciting at all. Always go after a goal that is worth celebrating. You’ll become slightly addicted to finding more challenges and bigger challenges because there’s a direct relationship between how difficult something is and the euphoric feeling you get when you achieve the impossible.

6. Don’t do it for the money

You realize that was much more relaxing when you didn’t have money and that having money objectives might not be the best personal goal to have. If you’re lucky enough to genuinely feel this way, it is a surreal feeling that is the closest thing to peace because you realize that it’s the challenge, the rush of success and the achievement that drives you forward and you truly love it. Your currencies are freedom, autonomy, responsibility and recognition. Those are often the same currencies of the people you want around you.

7. Be grateful

You feel like a parent to your Customers and they will never realize how much you love them.  They validate that you are not crazy. You want to hug every one of them – they mean the world to you. As an entrepreneur, you learn more about yourself than any other occupation offers. You learn what to do when you fall down, you learn to get up after you get punched in the face a few times. You learn what you do when no one is looking and when no one would find out. You learn that you are not good at many things, lucky if you’re good at a handful of things. The only thing you can ever be great at is being yourself which is why you can never compromise that. You learn how power and recognition can be addictive and you see how it could corrupt many. You become incredibly grateful for the times that things were going poorly for it is then that you learn who your true friends are. Most people won’t get to experience this in any other vocation. When things are really bad, there are people that come running to help. They don’t think twice about it. Annieck, Matt, Rob, Travis, Steve and Andrew are a few incredible people. I will forever be in their debt and I could never repay them nor would they want or expect to be repaid. You begin to realize that in life, the luckiest people only get one shot at being a part of something great. Knowing this helps you make sense of your commitment. I am also grateful to Paul for introducing me to the reality that I am in and showing me that I am not alone.

A final note

Of all the things I wrote during the past hour (yes, it’s now 3:45am), the ride is worth it. It’s damn exciting. It’s your own personal roller coaster trip and every day is different. Even when it’s bad, it’s exciting. Knowing that your decisions will not only affect you but many others is a weight that I would rather have any day than the weight of not being able to control my future. That’s another one of the reasons that I could not do anything else.

Have an entrepreneurial story to share? Or maybe some of your own thoughts and advice for budding entrepreneurs? Please join the conversation!


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