STFU #81 - How Peacocks Signaling and Olympics’ Overconfidence tell you about the balance needed in Startups

He is walking in a jungle, lonely and quiet.

Suddenly, he notices her. He likes her but does not want to show that he is desperate.

So he starts dancing around her. He knows that his dance is what will attract her. The more he dances and vibrates, the more she is attracted to him.

Eventually, she chooses the best dancer as her mating partner!

No - this is not a fantasy dream of an inebriated lonely single, but a peacock and his ways to attract a mate.

Typically, the peacock’s train of feathers is made up of?on average between 140 to 170 long feathers each ending with an “eyespot” (ocellus).

The eye or ocellus is the center of attention for any pea-hen. The blacker the eye, the more attracted the pea-hen to the peacock.

When a peahen notices a peacock and looks at the potential mate, the peacock will angle his tail feathers at a 45% angle to the sun in order to show off its brightest radiance to the peahen as their feathers change colors with the angle of viewing.

Through a series of multi-sensory signaling, the peahen will choose a mate that has both great bright colors, and the right song for her to relax and accept the male’s advances.

However, a peacock’s train does more than just attract a mate. The same feathers are used by the peacock when a predator tries to attack it.

By suddenly transforming itself into twice its size, the peacock signals strength and intimidates its attackers!

Matt Emmons and his Olympic Gold Medal?

American athlete Matt Emmons started as a junior champion but was touted to be someone with great potential.?

And then he entered Athens 2004 Olympics. During trials, he had to borrow a female team-mate’s gun for the event.?Not only did he come through the trial, he went on to win gold at Athens in the prone event with the same gun.

So Emmons, one gold medal safely in the bag, suddenly transformed from someone with ‘potential’ to a ‘prodigy’.?

And then reached the final of his next event - the 50m rifle. With one shot remaining, Matt held a three-point lead to his closest rival.

It was almost impossible to lose from that position.

He calmed his body down to ensure he could shoot the best shot. In a relaxed mood, aiming for the target, he gently squeezed the trigger.?The bullet pierced the bull's eye. He was elated and was sure he'd just won his second Olympic gold medal.

With confidence of a repeat performance, he looked at the TV Monitor with pride! He imagined himself standing on the podium flashing his two golds in front of everyone.

And then, no score appeared.?

Matt gestured to the officials. Was there some malfunction with the target? No, the judges said: No malfunction. Matt Emmons had aimed precisely and . . . hit the target one lane over, at his competitor’s bull’s eye. His score was zero.

He moved from first to last place.?

Signaling and Overconfidence?

On one hand, the peacock signaled his potential mates as well as predators, showing attraction and might. On the other hand, when signaling transformed into overconfidence, it cost Matt Emmons his Gold Medal.?

Most startup-ers oscillate between signaling and overconfidence.?

When Founders (including me) post about success on Linkedin, we are signaling - trying to create FOMO with our competition, and sending signals of authority to our customers and partners.?

When you talk about your work experience or college MBA, you are signaling to a prospective employer about the ‘quality of talent’

When Startups raise funds, we are signaling about ‘success’ as someone believes in our idea and now we ARE going big

Whatever you do, you are sending signals to the world out there on what you believe and stand for, rather than what ‘they think’ you believe in and stand for!

Sometimes this signaling is important - founders showing weakness lower the confidence of the team as well as investors. But in their quest to show strength, sometimes founders wear a false sense of confidence on them.

And this overconfidence goes one step further and changes our own worldviews. So founders exaggerating their Annualized revenues end up believing that they are 231st avatar of God.

or Experienced Professionals coming from larger companies undermine the old-timers in the startup and their points of views.

So if you hear phrases like ‘I also have 10+ years of corporate experience’, or ‘I have been in this company from much before than you’ or ‘I have seen the world more than you’ - you know which side of the ‘humility’ index they are on.?

As Stephen Hawkins said, The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge

Is there a solution to this 'Illusion of knowledge'? Some say that healthy Skepticism helps. It ensures you are neither on the side of true or false and are open to change your beliefs based on evidence.

At True Elements , our events in the past few years also sent signals - Marico Investment, Rohit Sharma partnership, Best Startup and other awards, PR, and many others.

But we are not good at dancing - not that we were scouting for peahens, but the flamboyance of ‘peacocks’ was missing.?

We also have our own rigid worldviews sometimes, and be a Matt Emmons sometimes, overconfident of our bull's eye, until we see the score to be zero!?

Thankfully, the teamtrue keeps us grounded and keeps us going, as they skeptically call out the ‘illusion of knowledge’ whenever we succumb to one!

As we move to the next level, we can see competition rattling around for long, trying to woo our ‘peahen’ consumers.

What they don't know is that the blacker the eye, the more attracted the pea-hen to the peacock. :)

(Writing ‘choose black’ might just be an outright promotion, but then I also have to do some signaling for True Elements!)

In Summary, be strong and put up a strong face but don’t let it go to your head, and stay skeptical as you build your own story!

For the dancing peacocks, see if you are being watched by peahens or other peacocks laughing at you,

For the humble bumbles in you,

STFU!

References:?Economics of small things,?STFU 63