In the land of startups

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Since my involvement with startups I have come across 3 consistent themes:

1)     Where you start is never where you end up

2)     Things always take longer than you think

3)     The characters and the storylines at Pied Piper in the show Silicon Valley are a lot closer to reality than we’d all like to admit

An essential ingredient in the land of start-ups is knowing what you are and what you’re not, but having the flexibility to color within the lines. Many new ventures start with a focus, but then as opportunity arises and the scent of revenue becomes pungent, they find themselves engulfed in tangential pursuits that often detract from their core offering. This is an essential part of the process, however, as there is no greater demonstration of the value that a new venture can provide than what a client is willing to pay for. A good deal of self-reflection and a lot of discussion on ‘what business are we in’ is a crucial component of self-awareness and often times leads you in a modified direction from where you first started. Successful start-ups know this and lean into it and know how to surf the challenges but then reflect on the waves and make sure that they are the right ones to catch.

The start-up universe is populated with radical optimists. This is another essential ingredient for success. You have to be an optimist to strike out on your own, work tirelessly every day to beat the odds and go to bed believing tomorrow will be better than today. This is not only an admirable quality but an essential one to propel your business and create success. After all, if you didn’t have the ‘half full’ gene, you wouldn’t get on that plane, make that extra call, or take that long shot meeting. It is this very nature that also propels entrepreneurs to over-promise and underestimate how long things will actually take. There is nothing in business that impresses me more than people who do what they say they are going to do. This sounds simple, but is really hard to find. When you do, hold onto it and never let it go for realistic timelines and assumptions are the food that will keep investment flowing.

If you are interested in the startup world and have not watched Silicon Valley, stop everything you’re doing and tune in right now. Here is a taste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2QjmYDtjv8

It chronicles the hi-jinks and everyday challenges faced by the geeks at Pied Piper, a start-up struggling to survive in the Valley. It is not only hilarious, but is full of hyperbolic insight on the challenges encountered by most start-ups regardless of the industry.

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