Are you sure you're a good founder?
I've been filling out forms for accelerators, and this question came out. I just froze, I didn't have a quick answer. Have I really been a good founder? What does "good" mean?
So what do we do when we don't know the answer? Yes, we google it: "what makes a founder good" hit enter. Terrible idea. There's a lot of patronising advice. Yes, there's a convention of what "good founder" means. It'd be useful to fill out the form and tell what the accelerator wants to read. But will be truthful for you?
There's a saying in Spanish: "everyone describes the carnival by how they did in it." People tell the story according to their own experience. Trying to add their advice to your own case won't help you improve what's wrong (at least I'm 93.6% sure about it.) You'd be stacking the "good features" on the "bad features". That's bad practice.
So I flipped the question in a negative sense: "what makes you a bad founder?". It helped me understand what has made me stumble throughout the years.
Here comes the introspective journey.
"Why haven't you grown what you expected?"
"Why don't you have time for the things you need to?"
"Why your co-founders/investors/employees/customers have left you?"
"Why aren't you excited about your work?"
Ouch. These were some of the questions I got from reframing the initial question. Truth hurts. But being a founder means being resilient, so you'll be fine. These emotions will burn onto your skin the things you need to improve. You'll remember them permanently.
And it was cool because it made me create new tools. Like a self-reporting page in Notion where I write my week's commitments on Monday and the outcomes on Friday. Or a To-do list based on the Eisenhower matrix. The point is to compound growth. If you improve 1% every week, you'd have grown 68% by the end of the year (I had to be a data guy, right?)
Also, to make more substantial commitments, you should consider to do it publicly. Then you'll have an external pressure to keep your word.
Here ends what I learnt from filling out forms. Give it a try. I promise it will question your own hypothesis about yourself. You'll feel energised to accomplish what you need to. You'll focus better on your work.
Now, this is what I committing to...
This is how I did in the carnival
Buckle up. Here comes what has made me a "bad founder" throughout the years.
⚠️ Note: This is me talking to my future self, have fun :)
I used to focus on research rather than experimentation.
Research is good –especially in health care– but you need to put experiments up to scrutiny. Otherwise, they won't become products, you won't be helping people.
Commitment: experiment twice as you research.
I used to find answers in spreadsheets, market research.
Spreadsheets are useful for recording past data, but trying to forecast whether you will get 1% of a $1B TAM? If you're reading market research about your space, you're probably late to the party. You need to code, ship things, talk to customers, get your thoughts into the wild. Those are the real tests for success.
Commitment: Ship, don't crunch.
I used to blame others for the lack of progress.
Blaming others is the sign of the sham. Being a founder is being the foundation upon which your business is built. Accountability in failure as in success is the essence of a strong foundation. You're responsible for everything that happens inside your company.
Commitment: own failures, internal problems.
I preferred to lead from behind.
This is HBR BS for big corps, not startups. Letting people wander while expecting total alignment to your mission is plain ingenious. Don't get me wrong, having the freedom to innovate is vital to create game-changing products. But with such short runways, you don't have the buffer to let the team get distracted. Also, people are naturally averse to uncertainty. We tend to look up for answers because it's painful. Even the best ones look for someone to show them the path.
Commitment: eagle-eyed focus on milestones, push your people toward completion.
I used to focus solely on money.
This is one of the biggest mistakes I've done. Building something just because there's good money makes you miserable in the long run. You need to fall in love with the problem. Otherwise, you will become a sinking ship. You owe it to yourself, your employees and investors.
Commitment: scrutinise goals –how will this make me happy?
I used to give out my time.
Helping others should be your mission. But do it through your product. With such a limited resource as time, you have to be Scrooge-McDuck-greedy. Your priority should be shipping your product. Giving our your time is transferring value from the pockets of your stakeholders to outsiders. A leader must look after their people. Setting a ridiculous amount of money to your time (i.e. $10,000 per hour) makes it more painful to get distracted.
Commitment: value my time in $10,000 per hour —is it worth giving it out or doing other things?
