Startups used to be fun, right?

The other day, I was sat in a lecture theatre with a hundred or so of London’s most influential venture capitalists watching twenty young entrepreneurial companies pitch their startups for hopeful meetings and investor introductions. Half a dozen pitches in, I was struggling to stay awake.

It was only 9am.

I was mindlessly bored.

My ‘startup life’ knowingly began around 2008. Around that time, talented individuals were unceremoniously ‘thrown on the street’ with no more than 3 months pay and a laptop to their name. The recession that led many of us to begrudge capitalism generally threw the concept of a ‘job’ – particularly for the middle classes – into disarray. I, being a na?ve academic and former songwriter, was one of them.

So for me and those like me, the ‘struggle’ began.

The nerdiest and most wishful thinking among us started to band together – to ‘make stuff’ that we sincerely believed might help create a fairer universe for ourselves and others. At that time, one’s social standing had no real bearing on whether they could make an impact. It was simply down to how talented, driven and prepared you were to make your vision a reality.

The most brazen of us, like John Harthorne of MassChallenge or Matt Clifford & Alice Bentinck of Entrepreneur First, decided to tackle their version of the problem head-on. They used their nerdy skills and ‘hustle mentality’ to create new and inventive ways for driven people to ‘carve their own path’. For others, like myself, we attempted to develop ways for more joy to exist in the world. I personally attempted this by combining my passion for the creative world with my passion for tech & psychology, in order to help other creatives like me never need a ‘normal job’ ever again. This led to my first startup – Libboo.

In general, and at the core of this article, startups at that time tended to have a few things in common. They served (directly or indirectly) a common social goal. The founders of these startups were driven by a desire to ‘not be like everyone else’ – to wilfully rip up the established rule book and reinvent the way things were done. And, most importantly, they never compromised their need to have fun and be original.

Oh, Startupia! How you have changed.

I first became aware of the ‘cookie cutter’ approach to creating startup companies in 2011. Deliriously excited, and one of only ten startups accepted into the Techstars Startup Accelerator in Boston, my co-founder and I entered the program wide eyed, mouth agape, and with our rebellious brains hungry for rule-breaking nourishment. But six weeks in, we found ourselves being force fed a cocktail of nutrients deliberately leading toward a prescribed format. For Techstars, we needed to be ready for the dreaded ‘demo day’. As a brief aside, I distinctly remember the exact moment at 1 Cambridge Place in Cambridge MA, with 48 hours to go to demo day, stomping my rebellious feet in the general direction of Techstars’ managing director – Katie Rae. I, in no uncertain terms, insisted to her that there “is simply no way I am giving your presentation of my company”. 48 hours later, pitch re-written with the help of my rule-break mentor Mike Grandinetti, I walk on stage in jeans and an oversized t shirt (without shoes – as is my custom) and delivered a one-word-per-slide pitch to Boston’s best, brightest, and – well – wealthiest.

Libboo was one of the fastest funded companies in Techstars’ history, at that time anyway.

But, since that experience, the standardisation of Startupia continued – at an astonishing pace. Books on how to be an entrepreneur were written by the likes of Eric Reis’ “The Lean Startup” and Bill Aulet’s “Disciplined Entrepreneurship”.

Tools and techniques were derived like “The Business Model Canvas” and “Mullin’s 7 Domains”.

Heck, even university degrees and masters programs were created in order to educate people into entrepreneurship – a few of which I personally teach, much to my own horror.

So, why am I upset about all of this?

Well, I believe we go in cycles of entrepreneurs. I believe these cycles last between 4 and 6 years. Faces will change and general practices mutate with them. At each generation, someone new to the game learns, develops, attempts, and succeeds/fails with their own understanding of how to be entrepreneurial. Afterward a few chose to continue, but most chose to ‘get a real job’. Each generation enters Startupia equally na?ve (ignorant?), cocky, bright eyed and bushy tailed into the harsh reality of entrepreneurship. And each of these generations are required to craft their own arts for solving problems or creating fundamental joy for the people they serve.

But, with all this material – this ‘proffered wisdom’ from the elders of startups – the way we evolve into our entrepreneurial selves has fundamentally changed. We now learn from books – not invention. We attempt to use square tools to drill round holes, simply because those were the tools we were taught by a ‘consultant of entrepreneurship’ at some accelerator somewhere. And ultimately, we enter into Startupia not out of personal struggle or the need to address some interminable social issue – but instead because our qualifications and student debt dictate we must.

Two years ago or so, I wrote a blog called ‘being lean means being average’, inspired by the *wonderful book* - Oversubscribed by Michael Priestly. It looks like I may have had my first brief moment as a prophet.

The end result of all this change is that folk like me – and my most recent rule-breaking co-founder Bobby Bloomfield – find ourselves falling asleep in lecture theatres watching yet another “Uber for [insert a meaningless existing product here]” startup, presenting the exact same company as the entrepreneur before them, wearing exactly the same pair of skinny jeans and oversized t-shirt, donning floppy hair and a stylishly unkempt beard, talking about how they ‘use AI and Machine Learning’ to create ‘value’, all without smiling or breaking a sweat.

Startupia, you need to wake up. Break the rules. Get back to making things people need or bring happiness. And fundamentally, become original again.

Peace.

(About Chris)

Chris Howard is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and champion of artists & nerds. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of The Rattle - London's first 'Music & Startup Studio'. Also, Chris is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Hult International Business School, and Teaching Fellow at University College London. Chris focuses on creating courses, workshops, and coaching challenge current thinking - to break moulds and norms - extracting originality and creativity from those building startups.