Category: Career in the Collaborative Age

How Startup Founders’ Age Influences Success

In this interesting summary of an interview of Paul Graham, Y Combinator founder: ‘Paul Graham on why he doesn’t like seeing college-age and younger founders‘, the point is made why founders should not be too young – and not too old as well.

The point is made on the basis of the relatively wide sample of start-ups that have been accelerated by Y Combinator, and their final outcome. It is important  to mention that reference is made here specifically to ‘startups with a potentially exponential development‘ as usual in this kind of post (ref our post ‘How The Definition of Entrepreneurship and Start-Up Can be Confusing’).

Paul Graham considers too young founders (i.e. still in high school) often do not consider a sufficient range of options because of their lack of experience, which leads to less success, and that it is not a good thing to encourage them to dive into a founder’s life too early.

On the other hand, he sees people that have too long an experience in a corporate structure – typically more than 20 years – not well suited either to the founder role, probably because of the work habits they will have developed.

The interesting part is that he sees determination and intelligence to be two highly required skills, with determination coming first. It takes a lot of energy to be a founder, and that is another reasons why founders in their 20’s and 30’s are preferred by Y Combinator. Again, this applies to a certain kind of start-ups and does not preclude people of other age-ranges to be a founder – and there are always exceptions to the rules!

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How Entrepreneurs Should Care About Their Contributors

Now that we have clarified what should be the objective mix of an entrepreneur, I would like to focus on one objective that I believe is too often forgotten: providing opportunities and livelihood to employees and other contributors involved.

It is amazing how this objective is so often forgotten when it is central to the creation of a healthy organization. Only by having contributors involved, committed and excited by the intent of the organization can it deliver exceptional service or products to clients.

And actually there are some situations where I find that this objective can be an essential guiding objective, in particular when the boat rocks and the economic situation of the company is not that great, or when there is a question about its future for example when shareholders don’t agree. My guiding principle is that people should not suffer from the inadequacy of shareholders or directors. They should be considered in the equation.

And while I know about being realistic when there is definitely a need to downsize because the economic equation does not work, this can be done as humanly possible.

Some fellow entrepreneurs might find that position too mellow but I truly believe that on the long term it is the only sustainable position, because the world is small and reputation is quickly earned one way or the other.

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What Objectives’ Mix Should Entrepreneurs Have?

Following up from our previous post ‘How The Definition of Entrepreneurship and Start-Up Can be Confusing‘, now that we have clarified that entrepreneurship is not only for licorne-type exponential growth startups, the next issue is what is the objective of creating a company, and more specifically, what the objectives of the founders are.

Businessman is sailing on paper boat in ocean. EPS 10 file

Objectives can roughly be a mix of the following:

  • working on something the founder is passionate about,
  • provide a solution that is missing on the market, creating value for customers or more generally for stakeholders, putting one’s mark on the world through the leverage of an organization,
  • providing opportunities and livelihood to employees and other contributors involved,
  • making money.

The weight mix of these objectives can vary, but generally there is a definite mix, and my view is that all of them need to be part of the mix.

It is important to have all aspects covered because:

  • passion is the only way the hard work will be provided on the long run
  • putting one’s mark on the world is about recognition and satisfaction
  • providing opportunities to employees and contributors is essential to have their full contribution and as a responsible business owner
  • making money is part of the motivation and just compensation for the value created, and provides with opportunities for creating more businesses and activities.

As a note, those founders that create companies only with the objective of making money exist, but their companies are generally not exciting when not quickly involved in inappropriate accounting issues. Making money can be one respectable objective, through the leverage provided by an organization, but the main objectives should be different.

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How The Definition of Entrepreneurship and Start-Up Can be Confusing

I am fascinated by the fact that the concept of entrepreneur and start-up is not understood identically by all, and how this leads to damaging confusion. According to Wikipedia, “Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business“. Any kind of business is understood here. However, most of the literature on the subject of entrepreneurship and startups has definitely a stricter sense: the business must be of the exponential potential growth nature.

Hence in the world of start-ups, business-angels and other venture capitalists, only businesses that have this exponential potential will be considered, because those are the ones that can pay back the initial investment. But most businesses that entrepreneurs create on a day-to-day basis are not of this kind: they are rather possibly niche, or subject to linear growth only.

Business angels and Venture Capitalists look down at those other entrepreneurs thinking that they are not true entrepreneurs. And when I seek advice about how to build a business, most of what’s available in terms of literature is only applicable to exponential-growth start-ups: it revolves around the issue of scaling, of financing while not making any profit, etc.

On the contrary, I believe that it is perfectly respectable to create a business that intends to put its dent on the universe and be highly influential while remaining relatively small. And it is quite as hard. And it is not because the business does not grow exponentially that it is a failure. Of course this business can’t then be financed by the same markets and they should not give the hope of unrealistic returns to attract the relatively easy money available for exponential startups. But still it make make its mark and provide a sustainable influence in its surroundings.

Why should non-exponential businesses and their entrepreneurs be neglected and despised? At the end they make the most of the economic activity.

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How Traditional Decision-Making Tools Are Not Fit for the Collaborative Age

In his excellent book (in French) ‘Bienvenue en incertitude!: Principes d’action pour un monde de surprises‘ (Welcome in uncertainty: principles of action in a world full of surprises), Philippe Silberzahn explains that the decision tools that we are using have note changed since the 1970s while the world has become radically uncertain.

“Predictions become inevitably victim, one day or the other, of an unprecedented event that makes them obsolete. However the decision-making tools we use have not changed. They are based on a predictive paradigm. They date back to the 1970s for most of them and are anchored in the industrial revolution civilization born 150 years ago“. And for sure, most of the decision-making tools we use are based on a linear evolution assumption. And the invention of spreadsheets have worsened the situation, as it is so easy to compute extrapolations over quarters and years!

Take the typical business plan for example: how many of them consider really discontinuous events and events that change paradigms? In a world of complexity we really need to question what decision-making tools we use on a daily basis.

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How Breaks Are Essential for Personal Productivity

There seems to be an increasing body of research showing that breaks are essential for personal productivity and performance. A good overview is presented in the book by Daniel Pink ‘When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing‘.

For example, it seems that “frequent short breaks are more effective than occasional ones . 18 DeskTime , a company that makes productivity – tracking software , says that “ what the most productive 10 % of our users have in common is their ability to take effective breaks””.

Also, “When […] students had a twenty – to thirty – minute break “ to eat , play , and chat ” before a test , their scores did not decline . In fact , they increased . As the researchers note , “ A break causes an improvement that is larger than the hourly study“.

Therefore, taking good breaks periodically is good for personal productivity – with the condition that those breaks really involve thinking about something else. When do you start?

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How Country Fragmentation and Diversity May Relate to Country Economic Performance

There is debate between the possible influence of a country diversity ratio on its economic performance. In this interesting Canadian article the author ( a university professor) argues that Canada’s high diversity causes an economic weakness: ‘Actually, evidence shows ‘diversity’ makes countries weaker — not stronger‘. On the other hand, we also know a lot of circumstantial evidence that diversity brings major benefits to a community.

The first step is to observe countries’ diversity indicators. The result can be surprising, for example I discovered that France is rather low on the ethnic fragmentation / diversity index (although that might be different in Paris region – one of the economic centers). Canada appears to be very high, quite higher than the US (but then again it would be interesting to know how the San Francisco area fares in that respect, with also high economic growth and high diversity created by the influx of workers).

The author then quotes studies that have shown that social fragmentation creates lower economic performance. One can observe that ethnic diversity is not necessarily related to social fragmentation, which can be created by other reasons such as income inequality. Therefore, fragmentation can certainly impact economic growth, but the relation with ethnic fragmentation can be questioned.

Anyway those issues are quite interesting to observe inasmuch as ethnic diversity is rather prone to increase in the Collaborative Age as globalization will increase.

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How Good People Don’t Wait for Opportunities, they Create Them

I like this post from Om Swami ‘Four Traits of Successful People‘. The post is mainly about the fact that you should not wait for opportunities, but create them.

“I meet brilliant people all the time who could do a lot more in their life. But, they are stuck, they feel. Life hasn’t been fair to them or they are waiting for the right opportunity, they tell me.”

Of course it may sometimes be easier to say than to do. But, “If you say, I can’t do it, you are right already. If you ask, how can I do it, at least your mind will shift from denial to a thinking mode.”

We need to shift more often to ‘how can I do it’ mode and create opportunities. Some will work, some won’t, you might get lucky or unlucky, but at the end you’ll have created your way.

When do you start?

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How Non-Compete Constraints on Employees Are Non-Productive

There is always a heated debate on the interest for an organization to introduce non-compete clauses in its employment contracts. I truly believe that those clauses are counter-productive.

As an aside to an interesting post explaining why Facebook’s business model is flawed and won’t change ‘“Do no harm” to Facebook’s business model’, Frederic Filloux quotes “A Stanford professor told me once that the absence of a non-compete clause in California’s labor laws has been a key factor to the rise of Silicon Valley against the startup ecosystem of the East Coast.” And indeed, it appears that California does not allow those clauses, whereas in the rest of the US and of the world they tend to be widespread (in France their impact is limited by the fact that the employer must compensate for the application of the clause, which makes it onerous).

I believe those clauses are stupid, in part because they stop innovation, they are difficult to apply in reality, and they create all sort of resentment between the employee and the employer. They should be limited to issues of commercial nature. In the collaborative Age, any impediment to the creation of teams to innovate and solve complex projects should be removed for the system to be effective.

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How the Compensation Model of Creators Changes in the Collaborative Age

Cory Doctorow in his post ‘12% of music industry revenues go to musicians‘ describes the business model of the music business. The title is made to get readers to react about how little that is. But the point developed frankly by Cory Doctorow in the post is that “The best part? 12% is an improvement. Before the internet came along, it was seven percent.”

Modern technologies and removing layers of intermediaries has thus created somewhat more value for artists. However, that remains comparatively little compared to modern forms of direct selling and live events. “Musicians have thus turned to touring as their main source of income nowadays. The strategic shift has paid off in some ways — but barely. ”

Of course, one of the issues is that the overall music industry revenue has diminished in the meantime, and thus finally musicians probably end up earning more or less the same.

Creatives and artists have always generated an ecosystem living off their art and it continues. Marketing and logistics still play a substantial part of expenses needed to promote creation and get it known. This will remain, unless the artist also takes charge of those aspects.

Still, we can watch as increased shares of value get to the creators. And this trend will continue.

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How Persuading Ourselves to Do Something Might Take the Longest

Seth Godin in his blog post ‘But why does it take so long?‘ makes the point that the time-frame to achieve various objectives can be very different. And that physical factors are not the limit when it comes to creative work: it is coordinating, persuading, pathfinding. Moreover, that what may take the longest of all is persuading ourselves to go for it.

I find this statement quite to the point: it is true that what often takes the longest in all projects is the decision to go for it. Self-persuasion is a major hindrance. Even more so when we have to persuade ourselves against the opinion of our environment.

The total time to achieve a project is thus too often driven by the time we need to persuade ourselves to go for it. Isn’t that a major issue in a world where projects need to be developed always quicker before they become obsolete? There is a pressure and a benefit to those that can persuade themselves quicker that it is worth trying the project.

This statement gives quite a useful insight on some critical success factors in today’s world. Let’s take less time to persuade ourselves before we go for it. Maybe experiment more at small scale before going for it at a large scale.. which beings us back to the lean startup and other considerations that aim at lowering the barrier for action.

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How Discovering and Developing One’s Passion Needs to be An Active Quest

In the never-ending debate about whether we should discover our passion and then work on it, or work and discover our passion in what we are doing, another piece of the puzzle is brought by the Quartz post ‘“Find your passion” is bad advice, say Yale and Stanford psychologists‘.

The gist of the thesis of this post is that “Your passion isn’t out there, waiting to be discovered. It’s not a mysterious force that will—when found—remove all obstacles from your path. In fact, psychologists argue in a new study that the pithy mantra “find your passion” may be a dangerous distraction.” “The directive to “find your passion” suggests a passive process. Telling people to develop their passion, however, suggests an active one that depends on us—and allows that it can be challenging to pursue. This, the psychologist says, “is a realistic way of thinking.””

The advice is thus to demonstrate a growth mindset and not wait passively for passion to uncover itself and develop by itself. I am very much in tune with this approach – although being passionate makes it easier to spend the hours, getting the best at it still requires enormous work and commitment. Having a growth mindset, taking advantage of the opportunities that surround us to develop our passion, experiment and discover more in detail what it is all about, is the way.

Discovering your passion in detail is certainly a way of active search and development, and of demonstrating a growth mindset. Passion is a process.

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