2015: The Year I Went Nuts

“Creating something from nothing is really, really hard.”1

As I reflect back on 2015, the year my partners and I stepped off the cliff, and into the abyss, the above quote resonates. I have always had great admiration for entrepreneurs, and thought I understood how difficult it is to start something. I have been part of a startup, so I thought I had a good idea of what it was like, but I really did not understand just how difficult it is. In 2015, my admiration and respect for those who successfully and repeatedly start companies, has grown considerably.

I am still a rookie, but one of the things that seems clear from year 1: you have to be somewhat nuts to do it. You have to be at least a little nuts to join a startup. To start one, there would seem another degree of lunacy required. What do I mean? Sure, you hear about the really successful startups, but most startups fail. So think about how crazy it would be to walk away from the world of regular paychecks and benefits, and at the same time, start shoveling your own money into a lit fireplace, trying to forge something from nothing. Why would someone do that? Perhaps you are thinking I regret doing it and am hereby advising others not to do it. Negative. I do not regret it--I love it! I encourage others to do it, but you have to be at least a little nuts.

One of the great positives, and one of many reasons my partners and I go into 2016 as “juiced” as ever, despite the roaring fire, is we are building what we want, the way we want it to be. As an engineer, designing and creating something the way it “should work”, has great appeal. In this case it is not just a product or service, but an organization. So what kind of organization are we so excited about forging? What do we want Purple Peaks to be? We have been lucky enough to work at, and with, some great organizations, and with great people and great leaders during our careers. We are distilling the best of our knowledge and experience into an organizational culture that reinforces what, in our eyes, makes organizations great, and keeps at bay those elements that frustrated or inhibited greatness. In the entrepreneurial spirit: quit dreaming about it, quit talking about it, and go do it--nuts, but awesome. This is the organizational culture we are forging at Purple Peaks--the culture that despite going nuts, keeps us juiced:

Our Vision:

• An organization that is a cauldron of open, intellectual freedom, curiosity, creativity, and collaboration, discovering and amassing knowledge and understanding of the universe, and utilizing that knowledge to make it a better place to live.

• An organization to which intelligent beings greatly desire to belong, with so much fun and meaning, they would willingly pay to be a part of our organization.

• We genuinely desire each other to succeed greatly, and willingly do everything we can to provide feedback and insight, yet we are cautious in doing so, as to allow each fellow, armed with knowledge, and the intelligence to use that knowledge, to blaze his or her own path.

• Together, we are able to achieve significant, meaningful things that none of us could achieve without each other.

• Our fellows are intelligent, witty, and hilarious, and we genuinely enjoy spending time with each other.

• We surprise each other--our achievements, our ideas, our insights, our progress. We “wow” each other often.

• “Luck” is the residue of great design. It is the result of an organization engineered with inherent adaptability, to quickly and effectively capitalize on future opportunities and deal with future challenges, both anticipated and unanticipated.

Our Guiding Principles:

• Do what is right. Even when it is difficult, or seems impossible. Find a way.

• Get the right fellows on the bus.2 And let only the right fellows remain on the Bus. Hire only “A Players”--no exceptions; never, ever settle. Never let another fellow settle. This is even more important than where the bus is going. With the right fellows on the bus, they will figure out everything else.

• Hire purple frogs. You may have heard we would hire “purple frogs” if it would make us better. Let there be no barriers to hiring the very best in all cases.

• Grow the pie. Incentives, deals with partners, customers, etc. should be designed accordingly. Bonus programs and incentives should be designed such that any fellow's bonus increases only as a result of the profitability of the organization, and thus the wealth of every fellow, increasing. Base bonuses and incentives on real, tangible value creation, not hope.

• Be awesome.

• Help others be awesome.

• Demand the best. Demand it from yourself, and from others. Accept nothing less.

• Mediocrity is the organizational equivalent of flesh eating bacteria. Never allow it, never be it, never accept it, never let it exist, anywhere in the organization. Actively search for it, detect it, and eradicate it immediately and completely. Make sure it does not return.

• No excuses. Offer none. Accept none. Zero. Own it, 100%.

• Be radically transparent.3 Be brutally honest. Confront reality. Have robust dialogues. Truth and logic are more important than protecting someone's feelings or ego. There is no reason to cause unnecessary pain, but helping others be more awesome by confronting reality and dealing with it, trumps pain.

• Be excellent to each other. Know that pain and "tough love" are sometimes necessary. Help make everyone better, more successful, and happier. This does not mean fail to confront reality, or fail to be brutally honest; it means have the right end in mind when you do so: help make everyone more awesome.

• Do the "impossible". Do what others do not believe is possible, but would be insanely great if it were. Do what others are unwilling, or unable, to do. Engineer a solution.

• Seek and destroy “Sacred Cows”. Do not let “sacred cows” inhibit the organization from being more awesome. The only thing sacred is making the organization, yourself, and others more awesome.

• Never let the lawyers take over. There will be fun, and lots of it. If we have hired right, we will be fine. If we have hired wrong, fix that problem instead of creating a new one by making the organization less awesome.

• Profitability is survival. It makes everything we do, and everything we want to do, possible. While we will not sacrifice our principles to achieve it, or enhance it, it enables these same principles, and the organization, to go on. It is the fuel that allows us to do more, and to do more, more quickly.

Of course we are also juiced about what we are doing behind the scenes.

I wish everyone the best of success in 2016. Go nuts!

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1Max Marmer, Wise Up: 12 Lessons Learned From a 2011 Entrepreneurial Journey

2Jim Collins, Good to Great. The quote from Jim refers to the right people, but since we would hire purple frogs, we amended this to “fellows”, meaning any member of the organization

3This can be attributed to multiple writings, the most prominent in our thinking are Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, in Execution and Confronting Reality, and Ray Dalio, in The Principles