Successful Startup 101: September 2014 Successful Startup 101: September 2014 | Page 34

Lesson 1: Opportunistic vs. Strategic Entrepreneur: One Of These Is Fatal Look up ‘shiny object syndrome’ in an older dictionary, up pops a picture of Theobald. He had the disease and it wasn’t pretty. Lesson? Nail first, scale second. Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom drive this home hard in their book ‘Nail It, Then Scale It’. Do this in the wrong order and you’ll drive off a 500-ft cliff. Lesson 4: Know Who You Are “That was really just a big mistake on my part. If it looked interesting, I’d pursue it. It was just like whatever came my way. Just chased multiple opportunities and never was strategic about any of it. That in itself led to many failures.” You’re either an entrepreneur or you’re not. Period. No half-way point. No being a ‘little bit’ pregnant. The entrepreneurs who recognize who they are at their core are most likely to figure it out and succeed in the long run. Lesson? Act strategic. Don’t just chase every opportunity walking by in a pretty skirt. Understand your core competencies, your ‘North Star’ purpose and learn what ‘opportunity discernment’ means. Theobald explained it this way: “I wrote two things in my journal: One, when I fall, I am getting up. Every single time. And two; I get up because it’s who I am as an entrepreneur. Therefore to not get up is to betray who I am. And so that’s what kept me going through all the failure. You can’t stop. You don’t really have a choice because if you choose that then you might as well sacrifice your whole life.” Lesson 2: Fail Fast… But Not Too Fast Sweeping the startup world is the mantra ‘fail fast’. And yes — this is sound advice for every startup. But is there a case when it can go too far? Ten failures in 5 years — I’ll let Theobald tell you: “It may not be entirely redeemable to let go so fast. I’m an impatient person and it’s a leading weakness. I’m very quick to let go — sometimes too fast to let go. Sometimes the most successful entrepreneurs will stick with it, try from different angles and then it eventually takes off. They stick it out and get the formula right.” Lesson? Yes — take on the ‘fail fast’ approach. But balance it with tenacity and dogged determination. You don’t want to be the miner who stops digging 6 inches away from the vein of gold. Lesson 3: Find Your Formula Every successful business on the face of the planet has this in common: they’ve figured out their ‘secret sauce’ and are now scaling it. But you can’t scale until you find your formula first. Theobald on one of his 10 failures: “By the time it came to close, there wasn’t enough revenue to sustain the (business) model. It just wasn’t viable and the formula wasn’t right at a fundamental level. It wasn’t too long after that I went and filed personal bankruptcy.” Lesson? Write it down. If you truly believe you’re an entrepreneur, commit right now to that as your identity. Claim it and live by it. I did when I was 14. You may think I’m a writer, but I’m an entrepreneur. Period. And I never quit. Lesson 5: You Must Have A Deeper Why Simon Sinek nails this in his infamous TED Talk speech. If you’ve never listened to this thing, do so after finishing this article. Theobald; “I believe the most successful entrepreneurs have a deeper why. They have a deeper purpose for what they’re doing. The most contemporary and best example I can think of is Steve Jobs who came back (to Apple) with no ownership and taking only a dollar for his salary. Just because he cared about delivering greatness. He just wanted to be insanely great and make a dent in the world. That mentality is what changed things for me. It’s the key difference between exceptionally successful entrepreneurs and marginally successful entrepreneurs.” Lesson? Dig deep and find the deeper why. If you’re just in this for the collateral benefits of possible wealth, freedom and independence, I predict an eventual train wreck for you.