Cooking and Investing: What I learned about private equity from learning how to cook.

Growing up with three brothers and young parents, our house was chaotic but fun – frequently a funhouse. I was twelve when my mom went back to work full-time and I offered to cook dinner for the family (and get paid!) a few times a week. My early repertoire wasn’t broad – and we’re Irish, so it wasn’t that flavorful either – but over time I got more confident and started boiling water and turning on the oven from time to time. And having a say in the dinner menu gave me some power over my brothers, so that was an added bonus.

As an adult, cooking still taps something in my brain that it did back when I was boiling hot dogs for my brothers.

• Curiosity: I like to know how stuff works. 
• Creativity: I was an art major in college and cooking scratches that creative itch.
• Challenge: I like getting in over my head and having to work my way back to safety.

Today, my house is where the big dinners happen – Sundays with grandma and all the major holidays with tables snaking their way from the dining room through the living room. We’re the people who talk about our next meal while we are eating the one in front of us. Recipes get scrutinized and are voted off the island if they miss the mark. Reflecting on the process of dreaming up and executing these high-stakes meals, I see plenty of parallels in the work I do as a private equity investor helping entrepreneurs build software companies. Here are a few that come to mind.

Constraints drive creativity: You start with endless possibilities: a blank shopping list, stacks of cookbooks, the abundance that is Whole Foods’ produce department. Limiting yourself is where real innovation begins. Like my colleague Cici always says, it's what you leave out that often counts the most. So, ditch the superfluous extras and focus on the core first, then build out only what is necessary from there.

Mise en place: While it's fun to jump right in, you'll be better off if you lay out everything in front of you. Prepare, take stock, adjust, and then jump in. There's nothing worse than missing a key ingredient at crunch time. A poor substitution can ruin the product; lack of preparation costs you dearly in the end.

Nail the basics: Like an abstract painter who can't draw the human form or a photographer who can’t nail the essence of a portrait, you aren't a real cook until you master the omelet. Sure, the gourmet flourishes are fun, but serious people learn the fundamentals first. Sweat the small stuff until it becomes automatic. A Navy SEAL friend explained to me in times of stress, people don't rise to the occasion; they sink to the level of their training. So, for the sake of your dinner guests and your portfolio management teams, practice the fundamentals first.

Embrace the chaos: Something will go wrong. Anticipate it; deal with it. Keep your cool, and everyone around you will stay cool, too.

Orchestrate: Having everything land on the table at once isn't easy. But it isn't magic, either. Learn how to coordinate competing forces and parallel processes to keep things on track.

Set the table: Optics matter. Presentation matters. Things go down better when you nail the pitch. Tell a good story, and you'll get the benefit of the doubt. Like cooking, investing is as much art as it is science.

Deliver the goods: Some call this product/market fit. I just know it has to be tasty, or it will be in a napkin under the table. Always under-promise and over-deliver for your guests and your investors.

Focus = mastery: You will get too ambitious from time to time showing off new tricks, but you will eventually realize that things work out best when you stick to your strengths. Food either tastes good or it doesn’t. Your investments either work or they don’t. Eventually, the truth is revealed. As isn’t that how it should be?

Enjoy it: What's the point if it feels like work? If you don't love it, someone else will be happy to take your spot in front of the stove or at the Monday investor meeting. The best cooks and the most successful investors I know can't imagine themselves doing anything else.

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