26th
Lucky Or Smart?: Fifty Pages for the First-Time Entrepreneur (Bo Peabody)
The number-one killer of start-ups is when entrepreneurs confuse
“being lucky” with “being smart.” you must possess the humility to
distinguish one from the other.
you can create a company that gets lucky more often than your average
company. Indeed, there is a pseudo-scientific formula for creating
business luck. And the key element is this: Lucky things happen to
entrepreneurs who start fundamentally innovative, morally compelling,
and philosophically positive companies. Why? Because lots of smart
people will gather around companies with these qualities. As it turns
out, precious few of them exist. And the vast majority of human
beings, and certainly most of the smart ones, are constitutionally
caring creatures who would, if given the chance, prefer to spend their
valuable time in a positive setting contributing to the betterment of
society rather than in a negative setting contributing to its
detriment.
when smart, inspired people gather around a fundamentally innovative,
morally compelling, and philosophically positive company, they work
very hard. And when smart, inspired people work very hard, serendipity
ensues.
the best way to ensure that lucky things happen is to make sure that a
lot of things happen.
In applying this formula, the entrepreneur has two tasks: Create an
environment wheresmart people will gather. and Be smart enough to
stay out of the wayand let luck happen. Good entrepreneurs are not,
per se, lucky or smart. They are just smart enough to realize when
they are getting lucky.
Much of what makes a company fundamentally innovative, morally
compelling, and philosophically positive is not what the company’s
business model actually is, but how the entrepreneur communicates the
mission of the company. A company’s mission, communicated by the
entrepreneur with charisma and passion, is what creates the
environment that attracts smart people and gets them inspired in the
first place. Which is exactly what gets the luck rolling.
Authenticity is an adjective rarely used to describe anything in the
modern business world. But it’s just the thing that people crave most
in their work. And there is nothing more authentic in business than a
fundamentally innovative, morally compelling, and philosophically
positive company whose mission has been crafted carefully and
communicated with charisma and passion.
My formula for getting lucky in business is reasonably simple: Start a
company that is fundamentally innovative, morally compelling, and
philosophically positive. Create an aura of authenticity around your
start-up by carefully crafting your mission and communicating it with
charisma and passion. Your company will quickly attract smart,
inspired people who will work very hard. Treat all these people
fairly. Provide them with a clear action plan and give them the
latitude to exercise their creativity. The results: serendipity, luck,
success, and, ultimately, money.
Greatness is exactly the wrong thing for entrepreneurs to strive for.
I tell my colleagues: “Never let great be the enemy of good.” A good
decision made quickly is far better than a great decision made slowly.
“if we survive, we will succeed.”
Start-ups are no place for greatness; leave that to the large,
established companies. If your idea is big enough, and crazy enough,
all you have to do is survive. If you survive, you will succeed.
If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, be prepared to work with people
who not only don’t follow the rutted path of the masses but openly
shun it. After all, that’s why these people are willing to listen to
you and your fundamentally innovative ideas in the first place.
What propels this limitless devotion of time and energy is the
unconditional love that entrepreneurs must have for their start-ups.
It can only be described as blind faith. It’s astounding the number of
people who will tell you that you and your idea are crazy. I have been
thrown out of more than a thousand offices while building my six
companies.
I practiced my blind faith hard, and in the end, I found the
believers. But even the believers started out as skeptics.
products are not bought, they are sold. The sales process begins when
the customer says ‘No.’-”
Entrepreneurs hear the word “no” more than anyone else in business.
And for good reason: Entrepreneurs are pursuing fundamentally
innovative projects, and the vast majority of typical business people
are lemmings. Why the hell would they support, with their time or
their money, someone doing something new? Instead, they say “No.” Most
business people are not paid to take risks.
entrepreneurs must learn to love the word “no.” It’s a perverse but
necessary tool for survival.
Most people would simply accept the rejection. Don’t. Ever. Train
yourself not to shut down when you hear the word “no.” That is in fact
just the time to really start fighting. No human being likes to say
“no” to another human being. When he does, he is at his weakest
moment. Take that opportunity, and start selling.
Ask yourself: As an entrepreneur, what are you gaining from reading
about other people’s companies, especially when it’s so often
sensationalized, and therefore not entirely accurate? I’ll tell you
what you’re getting: unfocused, unrealistic, and scared.
If you’re doing something fundamentally innovative, then there
shouldn’t be much in the news for you anyway. By definition, the news
has already happened. And the more you fill your head with the past,
the less room there is to think about the future.
the biggest irony of modern capitalism is that innovation relies on
the productive working relationship between these two groups of
people. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists
Unchecked egos are the most destructive force in start-ups, and in
business in general.
