3/3 Lead
Part of a demo day talk I delivered for StepFWD pre-accelerator years ago.
Our story (1/3 Listen, 2/3 Learn) ends with the same charismatic young woman who, after 3 years of grinding, managed to grow the company to a decent size, revenue was growing steady and they were getting ready for a major financing round.
Then the global pandemic hit. All of the sudden, mayhem everywhere. We all felt it in 2020, so we can understand how our entrepreneur felt.
She’s previously been told that building a startup is hard, one of the most difficult things she would probably ever do, that one out of ten succeed and, still, she embarked on the journey. “It’s 1% luck and 99% hustle”, they said… except the pandemic made it even harder, one hundred times harder.
She got angry and, internally, declared her disapproval. Her plans have been thwarted by the COVID-19 crisis.
“It’s so unfair! It’s so frustrating. It’s just not right …”
But, as much as she desired, she couldn’t alter reality. Again she called upon her mentor, who became their advisor in the mean-time. While talking to him she suddenly realised how much of what she was doing was out of her control, that other people, including her team, were affected by the crisis just as well and might need her help now more than ever.
“Reality is a stubborn thing, so you must embrace it!”, her advisor said.
First, she summoned the team and assured everyone they had money to pay salaries for at least another twelve months. Nobody was getting laid off. Survival was the name of the game now. They needed to reflect and adapt, to go back to the drawing board and think of the impact they could and wanted to have with their business during or after the pandemic. Long-term thinking was to be their mantra.
Second, she began having conversations with all their customers; not business or commercial conversations like before, but personal, meaningful ones, showing genuine care for the people behind the titles. Yes, a few customers froze their accounts, others canceled, but most continued using their product.
Nine months later, by the end of 2020, things started to shift in a major way: instead of them looking for funding as it was the case at the beginning of the year, investors were flocking to learn more about the company and potentially investing. Her courage and confidence to do what she knew was right, even when everything around her crumbled, were critical. As a result her business was in an unique position to take advantage of the new reality. At the same time, she understood it was less about something they had done and more about the world changing around them.
The story of our charismatic young entrepreneur ends here. But ours, mine and yours, continues. What will we make of it?
As we could learn, working hard is not enough. Timing is key and luck is real. But all of this without the courage to LEAD through hardships is meaningless. Leadership is an inside game: we need to first lead ourselves before leading others. We need to take responsibility for our own actions, not blaming others. We must be brave in the face of adversity and lead by example, not run away and hide. “It’s not my fault, it’s not my problem, don’t blame me!”, these are not phrases that can exist in our vocabulary.
None of us are courageous all the time, but there are key moments when the choices that we make, make us. “No, I won’t agree to that term sheet! No, you’re not the right partner for us! No, I won’t give up!”
Let’s train ourselves to do the right things, not the easiest things. To saying “NO!” today and leave room to saying “YES!” to something better tomorrow. But we have to carry our own weight in this world, not having someone else carrying it for us.
As the stoic philosopher Seneca said: “If you have passed through life without an opponent no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
As founders, we might feel alone at times. If we learn to listen and listen to learn from others, we’ll not be alone. We must embrace the roller-coaster of entrepreneurship, to turn to our WHY and lead. Leadership is not about satisfying our ego, it’s not the job title we write on our LinkedIn profiles. It’s the respect and influence we have without all of that, when we build a team of leaders around us and empower them to be brave, confident and humble.
This foundation is what will make you and me succeed.