Nesheim Online

MANAGING A WINNING STARTUP: The importance of "Trust"

"Trust" is critical to a startup.

The core team (typically consisting of a CEO, techie lead and business development head) have to be trustworthy.

Every stakeholder needs to trust the core team.

Employees need to trust the core team.

Investors need to trust the core team.

Customers and end users need to trust the core team.

Strategic partners need to trust the core team.

Yes, it's a very important word, central to building a winning new enterprise.

EMPLOYEES

Those engineers, marketing people and all the rest trust the leadership to provide three things:

• Competence: the core team is able to shape this great startup idea into a winning business.
• Benevolence: the leaders will not rip me off, they will provide fair compensation, challenging yet still reasonable workload, and a justified reward to me.
• Equity: the people at the top will treat me with the same standard as the rest of the employees.

When you get trust working in employees, you the core team are way ahead of the competitors who do not get it right. The top quality stakeholders will seek you out, give you the first opportunity to work with them.

INVESTORS

There is not enough time for experienced investors to closely manage the core team. Whether inexperienced or old bull-headed, core teams have to be trusted to execute a plan that can win. The people with the money just want to be excited cheerleaders.

When you find investors interfering with your daily tasks, beware: the money people may be sensing you are not trustworthy, less able then they thought to pull off the winning startup they put a lot of money into.

CUSTOMERS AND END USERS

You will get the first wave of end users willing to trust you for their first purchase. If they feel let down, you have a problem. If they feel betrayed, you have a crisis.

The same goes for customers (who send you cash).

Both constituencies must trust you.

When they do, they will rave about your product/service, spread the word around the planet via the Internet, recommending your business to many others. That's a big win. It is central to the primary thing Steve Jobs focused on in his quest to build great products that customers loved.

STRATEGIC PARTNERS

Suppliers, channels of distribution, sales outlets, etc. all need to trust you to deliver what your excited speech said. They joined you because they believed in you. Yes, they expect to benefit significantly, but it begins with trust in your ability to execute as you said you would. They expect you to be faithful and true to your word, not suddenly changing allegiances, not violating contracts, not even breaking promises and handshake deals. Complete trustworthiness is what they expect of you and your core team.

ETHICS AND HONESTY

Trust is not bout ethics and honesty alone. Yes, they are two aspects of what all the people cited above expect when trusting you (to be ethical and honest, among other things). But trust is larger than those individual aspects.

BOTTOM LINE: Trust in a startup is central to the entity's value to the many stakeholders who expect to benefit from trusting the leaders of the new enterprise. It is very personal. It is difficult to overcome a lack of trust once it has formed and thus it is vital to not do things that lead to that demise of relationship. When your stakeholders trust you, they will do amazing things for you. They will become part of your unfair advantage. Serial entrepreneurs understand the power of trust. Use it well to build and manage your winning new enterprise.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

BURNOUT IS GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS FOR ENTREPRENEURS: Lessons from the real world startup trenches

"I am so burned-out!"

"Man, I can't take it anymore, I'm out of here!"

"This is no fun, it's wading through an endless swamp. Time to stop everything."

Those are some of the emotional outbursts I've heard over the years of working with startup leaders. The intense expression of agony and capitulation are very real and not uncommon. They are symptoms that something very serious is going on inside the souls of such human beings.

The term "burnout" is now a real medically classified disease. In less than a quarter of a century it has moved from an obscure term to a word used daily. Attention to burnout has been intense from the professionals as well as amatures. Startup founder CEOs are all too familiar with the term and what it signifies.

STARTUP BURNOUT 

When your new enterprise is so difficult to manage, so disappointing and seemingly beyond the reach of the dreams of success you had at the beginning, your emotions are going to be seriously impacted.

When your emotions become damaged, you and your startup personnel are heading for burnout.

You are highly advised at this stage to see if you and your core team are suffering or headed for burnout.

The diagnostic is easy to do and well validated by MDs from reputed organizations. See the link below for a simple diagnostic test by the Mayo Clinic.

Burnout can affect your entire team of people and when a startup begins to lose key talent to one after the other, it signals deep problems that need immediate attention.

Remedies for burnout in startups call for professional help. Amateurs are not skilled enough to bring about the needed healing. As an MD doctor for help. Licensed professional behaviorists and therapists will come to your aid.

BURNOUT OPENS THE DOOR TO DOING A STARTUP

There is a positive side to burnout.

I've seen winning managers drop out of global corporations due to burnout (e.g. drowning in office politics, 24 x 7 hours managing teams of people in time zones all over the planet, enormous effort to grow sales less than 3 percent a year, endless meetings with no purpose, constant criticism from boss, peers and employees, etc.).

And I've seen such tormented people take a break, get professional help, recover and then do a startup.

Venture capitalists often welcome such talent into their offices as "executives in residence", letting them recover and find a startup to go manage. The individuals are refreshed and welcomed, and bring with them "lessons in the school of hard knocks": "This time I will do it right!"

Others I have seen buy an RV and drive with their wife to visit all 50 States in one year. They return and start looking for a startup to lead.

TOOLS AND TIPS

 A behavioral expert touched base with me yesterday as part of his research into burnout. I told him I had found these to be practical and helpful to company leaders concerned about burnout in their businesses:

Best Summary:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/burnout/WL00062

Best Article:
http://www.christianpost.com/news/living-the-simple-life-fighting-job-burnout-54298/

Related Issue:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/coping-with-stress/SR00030

BOTTOM LINE: Burnout is real and seriously dangerous, to people and to companies. Startups are not immune, nor fated to end that way. Knowing how to diagnose burnout is a first step. Knowing who to contact for help is the next step. With that knowledge, founder CEOs can stay sensitive to what causes burnout and work their cultures to avoid the disease setting into their startups. People wisdom is part of what makes unfair advantages unfair.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

JOHN

SHOULD YOU JOIN A STARTUP NOT YET TO IPO?

"Should I join a startup that is three or more years away from IPO? It is selling its first products, growing quickly and wants me to help open a new market for the startup."

That's essentially the question I addressed yesterday with a business development specialist.

What we talked about can help you make a wise decision when you are faced with such a career decision:

• How large are the odds that this startup can emerge before IPO as the Gorilla of a new space? We dug into the market, competition, and what the company's unfair advantage was composed of. The Conclusion: This startup has what it takes to become First To Get It Right in a New Market Category.
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• Is the core team ("top management) able to lead the startup through the next growth phase and get it IPO ready? We dug into the LinkedIn and other readily available material, Googling and reading about each person. The Conclusion: This core team has deep and successful prior experience with high technology product breakthroughs, building new businesses and startups.
  
  
• Are the investors of high quality? This was simple, the About web page touted the names of the VCs and Partners. I knew the firms and of their reputations. The Conclusion: The money comes from among the world's most respected venture firms.
  
  
• Is the cash in the bank sufficient for several years before requiring another VC round? Again this was easy to find on VentureBeat and other Googled sources. The B Round had been completed less than six months ago for a tens of millions of dollars financing. However we still needed to know the burn rate (use of cash per month) to know how long that huge financing would last (the company must build its own factory in order to produce its products with its new proprietary technology). The Conclusion: The cash in the bank is probably good for at least two years, but in the next interviews the candidate will inquire more about this issue. The reason for the sensitivity with this matter is because this candidate has been asked to start opening a new market for the products, one that has a very large order per customer and takes years to close on a deal (currently the startup is selling a lot of high volume, lower priced products to retail product producers).
  
  
• How supportive of your challenging assignment is your boss and his/her boss? We reviewed the reporting ladder, discussed responses about this issue (after his first round of interviews), and speculated on what each of the bosses would want/expect of the candidate. The Conclusion: The right people want very much to have the doors opened for the startup to enter this new market.
  
  
• Is the level of job risk for the candidate reasonable? The candidate explained his contemplation of this issue, what he would be leaving behind (compensation, stock, track record, employer relations, etc.). And his answers to my questions told me he had a reasonbly realistic grasp of the risk he would be taking by terminating a fine employer and moving on to a much more relatively higher risk startup. The Conclusion: The candidate had his head out of the clouds and had removed his rosy glasses, leaving him with a clear understanding of what he was seriously about to do with his career.
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• Are your dreams of freedom and creativity and joy-filled-living realistic? In this discussion this issue was premature. But it is very important to test before making your decision. Too often escaping from a job and joining a startup is like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Be realistic: startups are a lot of chaos and hard work. And not all founding CEOs are angelic, or what you need to thrive in the new job. The startup's culture may be right for some but hell for you.

There are a lot more questions we discussed, including compenation (cash and stock options), but the above are more important to be sure about.

BOTTOM LINE: Be deliberate about your decision to join a startup. Then you have a chance to make the Big Leap with your eyes open. And remember that the startup you are going to join will look to you to add something important to help the new enterprise build its unfair advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

"PROVE IT!!" IS THE NEW STARTUP MANTRA: Back to the Future circa 1970

"Prove it and then we'll consider investing."

"I want to see how the app catches on before I jump ship."

"We will get this thing launched and then figure out how to make it sensational."

Those are comments I've heard often from investors and talented people as 2012 begins to emerge.

To me they signal we have arrived in a fresh startup era, one that reminds me of the "good old days of the 1970s." Back then software startups were getting hot (and got even hotter when the personal computer ushered in the 1980s boom). Investors (not yet dubbed "venture capitalists") were cautious, wanting to see the software running before signing the check. That process launched a wave of successful startups running large applications and new databases. It became a tsunami as the PC followed Apple's arrival.

Central to the process was "Proof of Concept" followed by "First Product Launch". After those two steps, investors signed checks.

Today, I find many two and three man techie teams coding at night and on weekends. Often working remotely from each other, their friendships link them to the focused effort: get this thing up and running, then we'll find some seed money.

The good news for entrepreneurs is that this process opens the door for more ownership (percent). You take the risk for the earliest phase of the new enterprise and thus keep those seed round shares for yourself (e.g. Zuckerberg with Facebook.).

The bad news is that you have to finance the early stage by yourself. That reduces the number of people willing to join you. And it slows development time to market. And it makes it likely that you'll find a lot of competitors emerging the same way.

I'm back from Cornell University where I again saw this phenomena at work. It is here to stay. So plan on it.

BOTTOM LINE: We are in a fresh modification of the traditional process of launching a new enterprise. Investors are expecting to put money into potentially large deals only after they have shown success with an infant product or service. The "success" of the initial launch is what attracts the people with the money. It is tricky to do, partially because you need some friends to join you without being paid. Serial entrepreneurs know how to do this. You can figure it out. So get started, it will be a solid first step on your way to building an unfair competitive advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

STARTUP 2012: What style CEO will work best?

"What type of management style works best for a startup?" is a question I'm often asked.

Some of the veterans of new enterprise land have concluded that the best answer is "Whatever style gets the job done."

Unfortunately that's not very helpful, especially to first-time entrepreneurs who are wondering if they have "the style" it takes to be the CEO.

My research tells me that there are as many different startup CEO management styles as there are sports coaches. Both groups compete to win. Both groups are composed of CEOs with vastly different styles of getting the job done (through people, ergo by managing people).

So the first tip today is: Any style of managing opens the door to any person to be a founder CEO. You are not ineligible because you lack "the winning style" because there is no one style that wins.

What distinguishes the CEOs is the company culture they create because of the kind of person they are. CEOs dominate the values of the new enterprise. They hire people with similar values and those people do the same. The result is a collection of startups with vastly different cultures. Google is not Facebook is not Apple is not your Newco startup. In essence the new enterprise mirrors the values of the founder CEO. That means you become the designer of the culture of the startup by just managing via the style that is natural to you.

I'm currently studying the biography of Steve Jobs, picking out elements that get me thinking about management style and startups. I knew Jobs and people close to him over decades, thus the book is less news and more of a way of thinking about management styles for startups. This is one reason I recommend startup people read books to study people.

There was little innovative about management style at Apple. There is at Google. Both are very successful new enterprises. Their founders' values are the primary determinants of how their company's culture is built. And that brands each company forever.

TEST YOUR STYLE

What is your management style?

One refreshingly different way to examine your management style is to see how it measures up with love.

For a definition I use a passage from the Bible:

1 Corinthians 13:4-9

New International Reader's Version (NIRV)

 ⁴ Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people's wrongs.

 ⁶ Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of joy when the truth is spoken. ⁷ It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up.

 ⁸ Love never fails.

Try asking yourself (and then a good friend) how you are the same or different when using that criteria to measure how you manage people.

Then consider what you might do to alter your managerial style to get even more results.

BOTTOM LINE: Knowing your management style reveals how your startup will build its culture. That will show you what kind of people will be repelled or attracted by your style. It will open you eyes to what you need in people around you, talent required to complete the managerial skill set required to make your new enterprise a success. Serial entrepreneurs know that. It's what they use as the foundation to build their unfair competitive advantage. So can you.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

Merry Christmas Entrepreneurs!

Here is my Christmas gift to you: Mary Did You Know?

Wishing you The Best on your Adventure in the coming New Year.

SHOULD YOUR STARTUP ACCEPT THE SALE PRICE FROM A BUYER? Some tips on negotiating to a successful conclusion

 What can you do about selling your company at a good price?

Below is an email I received recently from an entrepreneur whom I respect, and some of the tips I gave him.

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From: Mr. O
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:06 PM
To: john@nesheimgroup.com
Subject: Some questions about M&A

 Hi John,

 Hope you are doing great.

I am shooting you an email because I believe you are the best person who can address some of the questions I have about the process of Mergers and Acquisitions. I've read your blog, but could not find the information I am looking for. So I thought of emailing you directly.

 I am interested to know your thoughts on what the negotiation steps are after the acquiring company makes an offer to the target company. 

How much room is there for negotiation before the acquiring company decides to turn its back?

Let's assume here the offer is on the low end of what the founders had anticipated. Are there specific steps to negotiate the offer up without hurting feelings?

 Looking forward to your take on this.

 Thank you,

Mr. O

 ===============

Hi Mr. o,

Good to hear from you, seeing that good mind of yours in action.

 ABOUT M&A

= It is about process.

= The process needs daily managing to keep it moving forward to the final goal. Expect to be 100 percent consumed with the process. (Your startup business will suffer).

= Final goal is a Decision: Sell or wait or shut down. Start with a realistic assessment of what you should do about each of those alternatives. Put a number on each in monetary value.

= With an offer to purchase on the table, start with an honest assessment of “How can we continue without selling?”

= Use that assessment to draw a line in the sand on the selling price: “We will not sell below this price.” And keep that a secret, of course. This is your Deal Buster number.

= Expect to get closer to -- but not to close up -- the gap between Your Higher Price and Their Lower Price.  You will not get to your Higher Price, ever.

= Document a list of the reasons for  your Higher Price: patents, brand names, trademarks, licenses, contracts, leases, technology, working IT infrastructure (make or buy economics, e.g. web site, ecommerce), location, customer base (existing), new customers (growing rate), business model (translate customers to money), competitive strength (market position versus competitors), compelling product/service, working company (people who get along together, like their work, get things done), management core team (track record of accomplishments with this company), strategic partners (handshakes, contracts), advisors (special talents), board members (wisdom and perspective, network of connections). Put value on each of those in monetary terms. There will be more here than you (and the Buyer) realize.

= Compare your list to that of “similar” companies, private and public.

= Use valuations of any other private companies that you can get your hands on. Related or  unrelated will work. Use multiples of revenue to set values, ignore profit  valuation methods. Even multiples of public traded stocks in the same general industry will be helpful to you.

= Lock up your emotions. This is about money. Period. No one hurts anyone in business, that’s for shrinks and priests to deal with. Simply be a business professional during the M&A process.

= Expect to get to do at least one round of Give and Take on the sale price. The first attempt will tell you how open the buyer is to yielding ground. "We think we have assets you might not be aware of that are worth more than your initial offer suggested and we'd like to discuss that with you tomorrow." is a good way to open the next round of discussions. No one likes to overlook something of value, so the Buyer will typically listen (eagerly).

=  Competition is your Best Friend: look for an alternative buyer, immediately. The leaks in your search will spur the buyer on, in your favor. You might even find a better priced buyer.

= Measure the Make or Buy alternative for the buyer: how long ,with how many people, would it take the Buyer to duplicate your business? Put a monetary number on that.

= How much more, greater, can the buyer make of your company (than you alone)? Put that Opportunity Value into monetary terms.

= Measure the Cost of Time to Market: How much sales and profit will the buyer lose or gain if it does or does not buy your company?

= Get your Champion Inside the Buyer to get excited about buying your company: s/he will have a special reason to make the purchase (find out that reason, and appeal to it daily, e.g. major promotion, chance to run a business, company hero [others have failed in his/her company], produces a Big Winner for his/her company, etc.).

= Talk to people who have sold and bought other companies, private or public. Listen to their stories and learn.

= A lawyer experienced with M&A can be a super asset to you in this process. Don't use a first-timer.

= Practice your negotiations by talking with advisors and friends, before you make the phone call to the buyer. That is a good process to use to get any reluctant board members on your side.

= Remember this  is a process that requires daily effort and management to push it to a conclusion.

Hope that helps you a bit, Mr. O.

(And by the way, there is a lot more to negotiate after you agree on a number: e.g. Your role or contract, ditto for the other people, etc.

========

BOTTOM LINE: Selling your company is part of a negotiating process. It is intense, emotional and draining. Your basic business will suffer. Get the deal done or ended ASAP. If you prepare, then you will be able to increase the sale price. Know when you will leave the room, what your Deal Buster price is. You will be amazed how many people out there have done this. Contact them and learn. Focus on managing the process daily, be professional, put the emotions in a closet until you are finished, and keep going until it is over. Serial entrepreneurs have sold their companies successfully. So can you. It's part of the winning entrepreneur's unfair advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

 

 

 

 

IPO GROUPON: How much did the employees get?

I'm in the midst of dissecting the Groupon IPO prospectus. It's a real messy story, of a series of acquistions that created and grew the startup to IPO in less than four years.

My first set of self-generated stats has shown me something remarkable: The 10,000 employees got a very low ownership compared with the founders and early investors.

My analysis so far shows:

• There is only 7 percent of the company reserved for future stock options.
  • LinkedIn had 15 percent.
• There is only 4 percent of the company that has been sold to employees via stock options. And the bulk of that was optioned to top executives.
• The value per employee of the 4 percent was (at IPO pricing of $20 per share) $60,000. Mason, the CEO was valued over $1 billion.
  • LinkedIn value per employee was $617,000 and the founder CEO Hoffman was valued at $900 million

The gap between the top brass and the workings is stunning, the kind of thing in principal that The 1 Pecent Demonstrators are upset about. I've seen a lot of IPOs in my years, but this wide-gap sharing of ownership is a first-of-its-kind for me in venture capital backed new enteprises. (There may be more to come with Zynga and Facebook. If so, it's a new chapter in the history of modern startups).

Next week I'll have more time to dig into the swamp and learn more. Right now I've got to pack my bag and get ready for flying ithaca, New York to do final exams at Cornell University this week (I always look forward to seeing what cool ideas the students have come up with for their startup plans).

BOTTOM LINE: As founder CEO, give some thought to the gap between you and employees when designing your stock option plan. If you see a gap as large as that of Groupon, expect to be a target for critics and probably employees (who may leave for greener pastures). Planning a fair, competitive and motivating-retaining stock option plan is what serial entrepreneurs do well. It's part of their unfair advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

THANKSGIVING WEEK 2011 FOR STARTUPS: Sources of hope and meaning

This is Thanksgiving week in America.

Some of you startup people may be finding life rather difficult at the moment, personally and professionally. So I have an fresh source of hope and meaning for you from an unusual source: The celebration of the Pilgrims on the first Thanksgiving Day in 1621.

Thanksgiving Day was intended by its founders the Pilgrims to be time of reflection, joy and thanks to God. The families gave their Creator credit for sustaining them during their perilous voyage and survival through their costly first year. Nearly half died of disease, with records showing signs of intense influenza compounded by pnemonia killing men, women and children.

Arriving in their new settlement in Plymouth, Massachusetts on November 19, 1620, they began building houses, hunting for food and planting a few crops for the Spring. Original documents reveal their enthusiasm for freedom to worship Christ as they wished, beyond the dictates of the powerful government Church of England. They used capitalist incentives to get the difficult work done quickly (each family had to construct its own garden and house). And they shared a common, highly valued culture, the confidence that the founding of their village on the hill was God's will for their lives. Miraculous events occured and gave them hope and detrimination to stick it out, not to return to England (e.g. a friendly Indian who spoke English, Squanto, suddenly appeared and showed them how to hunt game, fish and plant corn). 

Here are some thoughts for you to ponder from the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving celebration.

1. STARTUPS AND PILGRIMS MAKE PROGRESS THE SAME (DIFFICULT) WAY

I find startups begin life the same way, as these Pilgrimas, perhaps your new enterprise has also started this way:

• Founders' initial enthusiasm (for freedom from dominant forces in The Big Corporate World)
• First idea (what to to with that new freedom)
• Struggles to get started (financing, people to lead and work)
• Courageous start (begin building the first product/service)
• Near-death experiences (blows to nearly everything being constructed)
• Survival of First Phase of life (with several of the original people gone)
• Solid footing for Second Phase (working product/service, growing demand)
• Thanksgiving Celebration (of what the people of the company have done, who to thank for the "awesome" accomplishments, and what the new enterprise's culture stands for)

2. A PERSONAL SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION DOES NOT CRACK WHEN THE WORST HAPPENS TO STARTUPS

Startup leaders often feel alone when the media attacks their startup, when the thing does not work well, and as all the bad news arrives on the same day. When that happens to you (it will), try turning to the story of the Pilgrims for support and guidance.

There is good advice for startup leaders in this short article in the 2009 edition of a Wall Street Journal article about Thanksgiving.

It is a quick yet rich read that I found inspiring and practical. Its author, Amy Henry, discusses despondency and human emotions in troubled times and examines how the Pilgrims found encouragment.

=======

"With Thanksgiving just around the corner, encouragement may come from an unexpected source: the Puritans.  

Often misunderstood and perennially maligned, the Puritans—tested first by religious persecution and later by the elements in their primitive surroundings—grew not into the fuddy-duddy party-poopers of modern history books, but into a tenacious and stalwart people. They developed by sheer necessity one of the most highly defined and well-honed work ethics in history. If anyone knew a trick or two about surviving hard times, they did.

Defined primarily by their religious separation from the Church of England, the Puritans (not surprisingly) had a view of work in which God looms large. Living according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which states that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," the Puritans believed that all of life, including their work, was God's, and, as such, infused with purpose and meaning. They saw hardship not as a sign of failure, but as a path to growth and maturity, a mind-set that kept them from the kind of work-related despair seen in today's news."

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So what does that do for startup leaders?

Think about these:

• Don't accept all of what you hear about people when they are maligned by the media. I've found great people among those souls whom the reporters knocked and the public mocked. Find out on your own. Make your own decisions about people. Then be ready for your day to be attacked by the media.
• Religious people work hard, together, for a shared vision, with enthusiasm. Those values are fundamantal to their values and deep beliefs. That is where their determination, loyalty and commitment come from. Those characteristics are precious to startups. Look for and welcome such stalwarts to your new enterprise.
• Faith in God keeps people from despair. All startups will get into serious trouble. Their leaders and workers need more than self-reliance to keep from falling into the dark pits of despair when the tough times arrive (they will). Faith in God is stronger than self-willpower. Such people make great startup employees. They stand up to blow after blow and keep on contributing to the overall good of the new enterprise.

BOTTOM LINE: There is a lot more to Thanksgiving than giving thanks. People of faith know that. They make great employees as well as leaders of new enterprises. They have a deep source of purpose and reason to work hard. It is part of their unfair advantage. Wise founders look for them.

Here is the third part of what I found helpful from the Thanksgiving Story of the Pilgrims.

3. KNOW YOUR SPECIAL PERSONAL TALENT AND GROW CONFIDENT

Thinking before you leap into a startup is wise. Pilgrims have some advice for you as you ponder making that big leap. Startup leaders often are in water over their heads. Others seem to be ever confident. The difference lies in how a person sees themself and their particular talent.

=======  

"Reformer and forefather of much Puritan theology, Martin Luther, in his doctrine of vocation, taught that God gave each individual an occupational "calling." Man's vocation was not seen as impersonal and random, but as from a loving and personal God who bestowed each individual with natural talents and desires for a particular occupation. This thought further deepened the Puritan's sense of purposefulness, fortifying him in difficult times.

Much like modern work is separated into white and blue collar, 17th-century tradition held that sacred occupations (like priest or monk) trumped secular ones (like farming or blacksmithing). The Puritans, however, rejected such a distinction. Holding to "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (Ecclesiastes 9:10), the Puritans sanctified the common, believing that all work, however lowly, if done for the glory of God, was good. Christ Himself "was not ashamed to labor; yea, and to use so simple an occupation," said Puritan Hugh Latimer. The farmer's plow became his altar, his tilling an act of service to God every bit as holy and valuable as the priest's, reminding the unemployed that temporarily taking a step down in pay or status does not equate to failure."

=======

So what is applicable to startup people? Ponder this:

• When looking for your own special talent, take ithe search very seriously. With God giving out the talent, this is serious business. So be careful to recognize what the specialness is about. You may be a techie who thinks he would make a great CEO founder, but that may turn into a disaster if you lack the talent. Ditto for other career jumper-wishers. But the search can also give you courage to finally jump onto the track you really were created to take, at last!
• Once you are on the right talent track you can be a lot more confident. Consider that perhaps your talent does come from God. Then He will support your choice. Your motivation for doing the work will be clear. That leads to greater certainty and courage when doing your startup.
• Humility follows from seeing all kinds of work as good. People in startups do what work is necessary, regardless of job title. Pride and politics are to be left in Big Corporate World. That kind of startup humility gets a lot done very quickly. It is central to the agility of startups that gives them a competitive superiority to giant corporations.

BOTTOM LINE: Startup people do amazing things. Even more amazing results come from knowing with confidence that this is a place your special talent can shine. Pitching in with the rest of the company to do any work needed daily turns into an agility of the company that is very powerful. Be careful when trying to fit the right people into the right jobs (talent matching to the work challenge). And set the example yourself. Then you'll be on your way to building an unfair advantage.

Hope you have a thankful Thanksgiving, wherever you live, whatever you do.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

STARTUP FOUNDERS LEARN FROM YOGI BERRA

Today's Wall Street Journal featured Yogi Berra's response to watching the movie "Moneyball". Reporter Jason Gay notes that during the discussion following the movie, this scene took place:

Of course, there are his famous Yogi-isms, jumbled koans which will live forever. Halfway through dinner, a woman in a black coat sweeps over to the table and leans into Yogi.

"Excuse me, could I be very rude and say hello?" she asks. "I'm an international opera singer and we use 'It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings' at least once a week, and I think of you every time."

Yogi smiles.

"For clarification, he didn't say that one," David Kaplan interjects. "Yogi said, 'It ain't over 'til it's over.'

"Oooh—well, I love that one too!"

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I find the veterans of new enterprises chant the mantra, "It ain't over 'til it's over."

They have found that keeps them focused on a final victory during the month after month slog of morphing from first idea to First To Get It Right.

It sure gets discouraging at times for entrepreneurs. There is so much action in every new space, it arrives so swiftly, that new markets look like (as I emailed a serial founder last week) "The new space has been carpet-bombed!".

That means a couple of dozen startups (prior to yours) have been attempting to "go viral", to "scale", to finally get repeated use of their app/product/service. And yours has to stand out in order to attract the resouces it requires to become The Gorilla of the new space.

"At last, we have momentum on our side!" is what the startup veterans all focus on. That is the name of the game, because when that happens, the energy builds on itself, your Great Thing is eagerly sought by customers, and you shift from hard selling, to furiously taking large orders. You are then "In the tornado", being propelled higher and higher.

But to get there you have to have a special mix of courage, determination, innovation and wisdom.

Yes, there are often moments when it is best to throw in the towel, shut the business down and start over with a new idea.

More likely, you will be challenged by the milling herd of new enterprises in your new space, stimulated to figure out how to morph your latest version of your idea into the one that "takes off" at last.

This process is very difficult to go through. The pain is unavoidable. Like the butterfly that must struggle out of its chrysalis to get strong wings so it can fly away in all its majestic beauty, so you too will have to go through it all.

So while that transpires, remember the wisdom from a very successful coach of very talented people, "It ain't over 'til it's over".

BOTTOM LINE: Startup CEOs learn they must go through a very difficult process to move from first idea to the winner's podium. While you go through that, recall the Yogi-ism, "It ain't over 'til it's over." Serial entrepreneurs know what that is about. When you do, you'll be well on your way to building a powerful unfair advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!