Build the business you love

This is a part of a series I'm writing called My Untold Stories of Entrepreneurship, with the aim of giving people an authentic real-time window into the day to day life of being an entrepreneur in South Africa. Here's a little post I wrote to explain the series further.

Do you love the business you are building?

One of my favourite pieces of advice from a mentor this year, was to build a business that I loved.

Over the last few weeks that has become my north star metric. I ask myself the question repeatedly, and it stirs me deeply. Truly, amongst all the complexities in the startup world, falling back onto something this simple can be the difference between perseverance and giving up.

This aligning call has been the signal through the noise for me over the last few months. There have been so many decisions to make, difficult conversations to have, great wins and substantial, painful failures. So many that you end up being busy without clarity on how to navigate this ambiguous era that the world has seemingly entered. I've heard the phrase 'the grey-zone', being used to describe our current time, as one period of history ends, and another somewhat mysterious one starts, with the transition bringing huge volumes of change. The experiment of Neo-liberalism seems to be failing, power is disproportionately consolidating into markets, geo-politics has a new age dawning and technology is seemingly convincing us that we're more than mortal. Whatever we're telling ourselves, a lot is changing, fast (1).

I had coffee with my friend Job last week, who is considerably younger than me. Job was born in Angola, and has been studying information technology at DUT for the last few years. He said something that struck me while discussing what it means find purpose within our work. "The work is the reward, in and of itself, and should bring you the joy!". I thought to myself... where have I heard this before? Ah yes, my wife! When we first started dating, I asked Roanne Moodley how she would motivate herself to do the work she believed in when she was feeling unmotivated, to which she thoughtfully responded, "When you fall in love with the work you are doing, it finds it's own standard, and you no longer compare it to anyone else's". Wow, what a line. I love this woman!

In summary, when we love our work, it can in some sense take on a life of it's own, and positively influence people in ways we can only imagine. Some might say, it's one of the most powerful ways we can love people, the majority of whom we will never meet. Our work, can outlive us. This won't happen when we are consistently comparing ourselves to trends, competitors and chasing metrics that are hollow.

When entrepreneurs set out to build something that is purpose driven and they truly believe it will redeem a certain patch of the world (insert your industry problem here), there's an unstoppable drive that allows them to overcome the most ridiculous hurdles. It's the why beneath the why.

If I'm not building the business that I love, what am I building? I've really had to think long and hard about this over the last six months. I know that I'm not in this purely to make money, I'm a reformer at heart. I want to see positive change through systemic solutions. To create influential value that brings about flourishing for people and the planet through multiple bottom line business models... and then more specifically, to steward resources through technology so that new access can be created. More on that in a future article.

As good as any idea might sound, they're empty without application. I'm wrestling deeply on how to bring this to fruition in a way that creates a ministry of competence. Jesus's first task, was to make good tables (2).

The past 18 months have been incredibly challenging for me, and many of the wonderful people in the feature photo have parted ways with us. However, there are now new wonderful faces, and as I dig deep, and seek God amongst what is ambiguous, desperate for clarity - I've come to this conclusion in my vocation: Build the business you love. Let your work be a ministry of competence (3) (which is super challenging FYI). That the work of our heads, hearts and hands would love people beyond ourselves and our lifetime, because business models are made for people, and not the other way round (4).

in the words of my good friend Matthew Cole , when people think back on the jobs they had, they will always remember how they felt, and not necessarily what they did. Our organizations should be a place where people can flourish, and do good work. On that note, I must say, that I am truly grateful for the people I have gotten to work with up until this point.

Next up: Exploring the relationship between identity and burnout.

1.) Rebuilders Podcast - The shifting centers of power and morality

2.) Why Work, Dorothy Sayers

3.) Every Good Endeavor, Timothy Keller

4.) The Redemptive Playbook, Praxis Labs

#myuntoldstoriesofentrepreneurship #founder #technology #redemptiveentrepreneurship #workandfaith