Photo by Chalo Garcia on Unsplash

I’ve known people who start planning a new business as if it were a multinational corporation.

• They think about structure in a very “corporate” way.

• Their plans span years.

• Their visions are huge.

• Their resource needs are huge.

• Their financial needs are also huge.

Meanwhile, I’m bootstrapping two businesses.

• My structure is me.

• My plans span next week.

• My vision is medium (not small, not huge).

• My resource needs are me.

• My financial needs are small.

The basic difference is the difference in resource and financial needs, mainly caused by the different spans of thinking. As a startup, I focus on what I can build next week. Pretty darn easy to achieve.

On the other hand, the corporate-thinking founder needs to staff, equip, and fund something that spans years. Complicated to achieve.

The implications

A bootstrapping entrepreneur who focuses on building something today, rather than planning how to build something over a few years has advantages.

• Builds traction sooner.

• Engages the market sooner.

• Spends time building versus fundraising.

I’d argue that because a bootstrapping entrepreneur does all of that, they will be in a better position to build even a huge vision (I invite you to google the iconic photo of Jeff Bezos sitting at the “Amazon.com” desk in his garage during his early days).

• The more you build, the more traction you make.

• And, traction compounds. The more you have, the more you are likely to get.

• Plus, the more traction you have made, the more likely you are to successfuly raise capital to expand.

Focusing too far in the future can distract you from building traction today. It may even prevent you from getting started.

• The less you build today, the less traction you create.

• The less traction you create, the less likely you are to successfully raise capital for that huge vision.

Corporate thinking is not inherently bad. That’s not my message. But there is a time and place for bootstrapping and a time and place for corporate planning.

• Why not do both?

• Nothing says that you can’t start by bootstrapping today, then grow and establish that corporate thinking as you scale.

TL;DR - the morale of the story.

Build stuff now. Build product and traction.

You can still hold onto, and build toward, a huge vision.

Just don’t try to build it all at once.

Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

I was talking with a friend today over coffee. We were talking about how freely (publicly) talking about your product, or even giving away something of value for free, can be helpful to your marketing and sales.

That reminded me of a story from years ago, when I was hosting meetings of a local Inventors Club. One day a couple showed up and were all excited about their product concept. They had been working on it for two years or so, had a prototype, and felt stuck because they lacked the cash to obtain a utility patent.

I asked them how many potential customers they had shown the product concept to, and their reponse. The two looked at me like I was crazy. They were shocked I would ask that. They responded that they had shown it to no one because they were afraid someone would steal their idea. They wanted to have patent protection first.

Yikes.

For two years.

Zero customer feedback.

Zero names added to a prospect list.

Zero sales.

Now, I will say that a lot of the inventors at that club totally agreed with their decision. Inventors are not necessarily entrepreneurs. But I was, and I was shocked.

Let’s think about this.

Their decision caused them to create no traction, and if even they had $15K or $20K they would be spending it on a patent, not inventory or marketing.

Versus.

Spending probably way less than that to start showing their product to people in their target market (which was very well known and easy to reach), seeding a list of interested prospects, and using that to kickstart a product launch.

I felt bad for them and tried to explain that they weren’t at risk as much as they thought, and they could get started moving to a product launch right now! I was outvoted by the conservative inventors in the crowd (LOL).

Why shouldn’t they have worried (and why shouldn’t other new entrepreneurs worry)?

As my friend and I discussed this morning, it is highly unlikely that somneone will actually steal your idea.

• As I see it, a random person who sees your idea is rarely as passionate about the idea as you are. That’s why you created it. You love it. You know it is great. You know that the world should have it. You want to build it.

• As my friend sees it, it’s about the work. Someone might love your idea, but then realize that it takes a lot of hard work to design it, manufacture it, market it, and sell it. For those who are not as passionate about it as you, that is way too much work.

I ask you.

You know that SpaceX makes good money. Are you going to spin up a SpaceX clone? No? Why not. Not your thing? Too much work?

Think about the last cool app you saw. Did you vibe code a copy? No?

See what I mean?

Suppose someone does copy your idea.

The probability is low, but let’s suppose someone does make a clone of your product or service.

Would a patent help? Maybe. But you have to be financially able to defend it (which is costly). It does redirect your money to a non-sales, non-traction activity. And sometimes others can design around your patent so it doesn’t really protect you. True, in some technical fields, like Medtech, it is a requirement for the investment you’ll need or for an eventual exit. But not all fields.

You’ll still want to have a head start in terms of traction. So, the best protection is to be ahead of everyone else. If your competition starts selling a copy of your design, you should already be working on a next generation design. Even if your competition patents something they’ve copied from your existing design, you could already be working on a non-infringing next generation design, or on deeper customer understanding, or both. Fighting with them in the courts repurposes a lot of your money to attorneys and takes time.

Time to market is just a part of the answer.

There’s something to be said for not just being first to market, but also building a solid brand in the market. Being trusted as a brand is a wonderful asset. It can create some level of moat.

You can’t do that by never launching and never engaging customers.

TL;DR

Most of the time, people will not steal you idea if you make it public. It takes work that they don’t want or passion that they don’t have. If your idea is copied, you want to compete in the marketplace, not the courts.

Photo by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash

In a classroom this week, I happened to talk with two high school students with the same concern.

You’ve worked hard developing a business during your high school days. You’ve been successful. Now you are graduating.

• Maybe you’ll be going to college (military or trade school) away from your home town (where all of your local customers are).

• Maybe you’re concerned that college will occupy more of your time than high school.

• Maybe you’re planning for a job in your dream career field (and either that field is not the same as your business or the job is a step up from your business).

• Maybe you and your business partners are all going in separate directions to separate cities.

• Maybe your business was never your career goal, but it turns out that it is pretty cool and makes darn good money.

Whatever your life change is at graduation, it is a change. And that could impact your business.

The time to start thinking about that is before you graduate.

If you wait until you graduate to decide what to do with your business, you will be pressed for a quick decision. But at the same time, you will also be getting ready for college, military, new job, trade school or something else. And that will probably take precedence over planning for your business, because that new direction is your future.

A family business needs a succession plan. A plan for keeping the continuity of the business when the founder retires.

• Sometimes that is passing the business on to another family member.

• Sometimes that plan means selling the business.

• Sometimes it means liquidating the business and just stopping.

Your graduation “succession” plan can take many directions.

Ideally you will want to think about them, and leave yourself plenty of time to implement any changes. I can’t possibly advocate one option over another. That is entirely up to you.

Here are some ideas and considerations.

• Do you want to continue the business? Or is selling it, or even liquidating it, perfectly OK with you? It’s yours to do with as you like.

• On the opposite side, can you double down and go full time with the business right from graduation? Can it provide you an attractive career path that will grow over time?

• Can you continue the business wherever you’ll be after high school? Is it a side gig that you can run during college or with a job, for example? Is it something you can run entirely remotely? If you plan to personally continue it, will you need to do some groundwork to get up to speed in a new city?

• Can you convert from an owner/worker to just an owner? This means that you will hire people to conduct the business while you retain ownership. There has to be enough profit margin in your sales to afford hiring. High school entrepreneurs are often their own labor, meaning they take profit as their “pay” and are not priced to pay someone else AND still leave a profit for them as owners. Start early enough and you can plan for this. Adjusting pricing. Hiring good people. Training them. The business can run while you go off and do something else, but it is still your business.

• If you plan to sell the business, know that that will take time. You are not selling your products anymore. You are selling the entire company. Customer lists, revenue flows, products, trade secrets, everything. It’s a different kind of sale. Contracting with a business broker might be helpful (assuming your business is large enought to attract their attention).

• One alternative between hiring people and selling the business is to find a student who wants to “take over” operating the business when you leave. You can create some sort of creative plan where you retain part ownership or part profit, perhaps letting the new person earn more and more ownership over time. If you have co-founders, maybe the person is the one who really wants to continue the business, and the plan is essentially a gradual buyout. Let your attorney help.

• Or any number of other creative options, depending on what you want.

Lots to figure out.

It really depends on what you want to do.

For some of you, your business is just a fun high school thing, but your aspirations are elsewhere. Go for it! Take those entrepreneurial skills with you! You can use them anywhere.

For others, your business has become wound up in your life, and IS your aspiration. Cool! Keep at it! Get the additional skills you want at college, military, trade school, or a J.O.B. Learn and apply that to your business.

But think about your plan now. Please don’t be caught short.

A group of student entrepreneurs from Kosciusko County, Indiana

I recently saw a post somewhere on my feed talking about how entrepreneurship has become a huge desire for young people, meaning the desire to start a small business or a side gig. Since I worked coaching young entrepreneurs for over two decades, that caught my attention. I asked my friend Claude to dig a bit deeper, specifically at the high school level. Here’s my summary of what it found.

The number of high school students who are interested in starting a business is very high.

Across the nation, the studies show that consisently 50% (+/- 10%) of high school students show interest in starting a business. This range stays fairly consistent among boys and girls and across geographies.

But, the number who actually start a business is WAY smaller.

One report put it at 4% to 6%! What a gap! That’s an order of magnitude drop. Yikes.

Other reports discussed how “interest” declines a bit as student age. They speculated that decline in correlated with students becoming “more realistic about the challenges” of starting and operating a business.

Looking further into roadblocks for students found some clear data.

Some are roadblocks are purely psychological.

• A majority of students say that they are not sure how to start the process of buidling a business.

• A similar majority say “fear of failure” is stopping them.

Some are financial.

• Obtaining capital or personal finances are cited by a majority of students as a reason for not starting.

Some are structural.

• In most states, minors (under 18) can’t sign contracts. That prohibits them from starting companies, opening bank accounts, signing leases, and so forth.

• Work-arounds exist, like having a parent be the business’s representative until the student is of majority age, but that gets complicated quickly.

AI is a bright spot.

• AI tools are making it easier for students to do business research, build products, and automate some activities they might otherwise have to hire to accomplish.

• Yet, some students remain skeptical that AI is a great tool for the long run.

What does this all mean?

The big gap between interest and action is striking. To me it is also alarming.

Those of you who are old-timers like me will remember Geoffrey Moore’s classic book Crossing the Chasm. He dealt with the technology adoption curve and clarified a challenge that new product entepreneurs had to face. Good book!

Today, another challenge faces young entrepreneurs. Another gap. Another chasm.

• Some of the issues are structural - contracts and such. But that doesn’t stop a young entrepreneur from doing research, or doing product development, or using publishing or social media to start building a following of potential cutomers for later. Making a name for yourself and starting to build your brand creates assets.

• Some of the issues are financial. But having a strong list of prospective customers already engaged (even though you aren’t selling anything to them YET) is cool. It’s a huge asset. It makes monetizing easier when the time comes. Also, AI tools are bringing the cost of starting down to a reasonable level.

• That leaves the psychological issues. I’ve worked for over two decades as a coach and mentor for young entrepreeneurs. Like my fellow mentors, I know the difference that we can make to help students overcome the psychological barriers and think through how to wrangle the structural and financial barriers.

I think that it is time I re-enter that field! Stay tuned.

Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash

You have to start somewhere. For an entrepreneur with an interest (but not experience) in a field, technology, or market that often means that they have two things to bootstrap.

1. Your domain knowledge and experience

2. Your business

Right now a new school year is beginning. Next week I’ll be meeting with some students who are formulating new business ideas for an entrepreneurship class. I guarantee that some of them don’t have as much knowledge and experience for their business ideas as they do passion and excitement.

I know that because that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.

Although I don’t feel like a stranger to innovation process, as I pivot my business into that field, I have to remember that it’s been a decent long while since I actively practiced in the field. I’m not at zero, but I’m not at one hundred either!

Working through how I make sure I am current on my knowledge of innovation practice, tools, and trends is exactly that - work! Like a lot of the students I meet, I am bootstrapping both things at the same time. It seems like I constantly jump from one to the other.

• Productize what I know.

• Learn more.

• Have new ideas.

• Productize those.

• Learn more.

• Have more ideas.

• Repeat.

Part of me is very satisfied with this “process”. At the same time that it focuses on product, it respects that new learning (and new ideas) are valuable.

I think it works for me because I had a very solid base knowledge of innovation process in the first place. I did practice as a consultant in the field for six years. Plus, the tech marketing I did before that consulting and the entrepreneur coaching I did after that consulting were both very related to innovation. Not to innovation process as a pure practice, but they did involve creating innovative new products, services, or businesses.

A young student entrepreneur may not possess that past experience base.

They just may know that a field excites them. That they see something about it, or some challenge in it, that lights a spark within them.

Starting to express that as a business can be difficult. Where I had the benefit of being able to productize something quickly based on my existing knowledge, they don’t possess that base.

But, they are often in a class that operates at a quick cadence. Start something! Right now! The assignment is due! Let’s gooooo!

I have two suggestions.

First, just slow down. Explore that field a bit. Learn about it. Becoming a research-based expert. You may not be a practitioner or business owner in the field (yet), but you can still learn A LOT about it.

• Read the websites of practitioners and entrepreneurs.

• Follow the leaders in the field on LinkedIn and X. Comment and engage.

• Email or message them and arrange to talk (a lot easier for a student)

• Bounce from one leading voice to another as you discover more.

• Read books.

• Watch YouTube videos.

Second, publish your own ideas about the field. Yes, I know that just reading that makes you feel imposter syndrome. But I remind you that you are an intelligent person who is entitled to hold opinions. Expecially about a field that excites you!

• You are reading this on Substack. Remember that you can create your own Substack publication for free!

• Or your own website, for nearly free.

• Or a podcast.

• Or all three.

• Start with what excites you about the field.

• Continue with what you learn from leaders in the field.

• And what excites you about that.

Will that monetize enough to sustain a business? Probably not full time, at least at first. But it is a good side gig. Even if it doesn’t monetize, it can build your engagement with the field, build your knowledge and expertise, and perhaps even position you as a player in the field!

See you later, player!

Alan Kay receiving the Turing Award - by Ryan Johnson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Alan Kay is a prolific computer scientist and inventor. He’s received more awards and honorary degrees than all of us reading (and writing) this put together. He’s known for pioneering work at Xerox PARC and elsewhere with object oriented programming, window-based graphical user interfaces, and much more. If you’ve heard the words Dynabook or Smalltalk, you’ve heard of his work.

As cool as his achievements are, especially in regard to youth-oriented computing systems, I really love Alan’s approach to futuristic invention.

Building your own future

• Start by thinking 30 years in to the future.

• Create a vision for something new in the world 30 years from now. The question, “Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if we didn’t have <your vision> by then?” is one way to phrase it.

But, you might say, building that vision today won’t be possible due to either the state of today’s technology or its cost (or both). True. Alan’s next step deals with that.

• Pull the vision back to 10-15 years from now.

• Build a tangible version of what that interim vision would be.

Use today’s technology to build a crude, but effective, version of that vision. Will it be too expensive to be a commercial product? Yes. will it be expensive to design and build? Yes. But, can it serve as a test bed and learning environment? Yes!

The Alto

In the 1960’s at Xerox PARC, when they aimed to build a visionary computer - one that was a “personal” computer (not a mainframe), they built the Alto. Sized and powered more like what we’d consider a minicomputer, it served as the equivalent of a personal desktop computer. It used a keyboard. It had a display and a graphical user interface. It used a mouse. It was clearly not cost effective for personal use, but it was oriented to one user.

You can watch the complete 1968 demonstration by Doug Englebart at “The Mother of All Demos”. I guarantee that it will look crude to you. I also guarantee that will see in it the spark of the very computer on which you are reading this article.

From there, the process continued.

• Let people play with it (or use it).

• With feedback and improved technology (some of which you will probably invent), learn how to make it better over time.

After 10-15 years, you will have a robust version of your vision that is probably cost effective (although maybe still a bit expensive). You will be on you way to the 30-year vision.

Does this remind your of something?

Ever since the era of Lean Startup, entrepreneurs have been making prototypes to validate with users or prospects.

But Lean Startup prototype creation and hypothesis testing are not the same as Alan’s method to build the future.

Related, yes. The same, no.

Alan’s method reaches much farther into the future than a Lean Startup founder reaches. The Lean Startup founder wants to get into the market as soon as possible.

A Lean Startup founder hopes to validate sales potential, and will pivot if need be to correct their hypothesis, but Alan’s method is built to pivot. That first tangible product is knowingly too expensive for the market, but perfect for a test bed.

So, the main difference is the time orientation.

While the Lean Startup founder wants to get to market as quickly as possible, Alan’s Method is concerned with building a brand new market or industry over time. In that case, having a test bed to work with as soon as possible is the goal - not selling it commercially at volume.

It seems to me that the pressure to get to market could influence a Lean Startup founder to minimize testing (or said differently, "letting people play with the product”).

Alan’s method, on the other hand, is throttled from getting to market right away by technology and product costs. That sounds bad, but its advantage is that it gives the developer more time to learn how to make the product great.

Two questions for you.

How can we, as entrepreneurs, think farther into the future to create innovations that extend farther into the future?

How can we, as entrepreneurs, create brand new product categories, markets, or industries - rather than rushing a product into the existing market?

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

Here’s another Richard Hamming phrase from The Art of Doing Science and Engineering that struck me (as an encore to last Wednesday’s article).

This comes from Chapter 1, Orientation. Here Hamming is saying that your understanding of how the future itself will unfold is intertwined with the vision you create of your future within that. The two are separate, but correlated. As he says, he considers one role of the course he was teaching to “start you on the path of creating in some detail your vision of your future.”

The future will roll on with or without you.

In science and engineering, you can often map the trajectory of a technology. Faster, cheaper, smaller, more accurate, more reliable, etc.

Hamming devoted his Friday afternoons (all of them, not just one per quarter or year) to imagining what would happen in the field of computing. That’s 10% of his work time set aside to envision the future of his field. He pondered three questions.

What is possible?

What is likely to happen?

What is desirable to have happen?

The possible, he says, deals with science. Likelihood suggests engineering. Desirability relates to ethics.

Making what is desirable more likely

When you ponder the second and third questions, you will often find different answers. One part of crafting your own vision of your future, Hamming suggests, is to have ideas about how to “alter things to make the more desirable future occur, rather than let the inevitable happen and suffer the consequences.”

I’d like to add that, although Hamming doesn’t necessarily say this directly in this passage, as a scientist you can also sometimes expand the realm of the possible. Science is about continual discovery.

What a great framework for forming a view of the future!

Entrepreneurs and startup founders often have strong visions.

Nearly every pitch deck includes the expression of a vision. Nearly every operating company includes some form of a vision statement.

The question I have for you entrepreneurs is, “How congruent is your vision with Hamming’s three questions?” Actually, I have multiple questions.

• Did you just pick a cool goal without considering possibility, likelihood, or desirability?

• Does your vision make the world a better place (i.e. more desirable) or just make money?

• Does “your future” consider making your field or industry better? Perhaps advancing the science or technology of your field?

• Does your vision point to a specific future? Or is it a Dilbert-like bunch of word salad?

In my own case …

The vision statement I use, “Enabling the next generation to build a better tomorrow” is built on an unstated vision of the future.

• I see economic growth and vitality as the Desirable outcome. The region in which I live, Northeast Indiana, deserves (in my opinion) a strong economic future.

• But I don’t see it guaranteed or Likely to just happen on its own. We are a rust belt region. Our future has been hitched to the ups and downs of manufacturing. The technologies we were once known for as leaders are becoming antiquated.

• Not only is a new view of the Possible needed, but we need a way to continually reinvent ourselves and create our own upside not tied to the ups and downs of any one industry.

That has led me at Steve Franks Innovation to create processes and to equip people through training and mentorship to build that future. To get to specificity, I have to drop down a level into the four specific types of work that I do.

1. Invention / Innovation process training.

2. Writing about innovation and entrepreneurship (here and elsewhere).

3. Mentorship of a few individual young people with big visions of their own.

4. Working with young leaders at Pave the Path.

Frankly, I love it!

Next up: how Alan Kay approached building a highly ambitious future.

Photo by Frederik Löwer on Unsplash

In the Preface to Richard Hamming’s classic book, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, there is a sentence that stands out to me. Actually, there are lots of them, but I’m going to go with this one.

Hamming is addressing himself here. He wrote the book as a result of a graduate engineering course he taught at the U.S.Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

He mentions that many would brush off this thought with something like, “No one can know the future.”

Hamming counters with, “It seems to me the difficulty of knowing the future does not absolve the teacher from seriously trying to help the student to be ready for it when it comes.”

It seems to me that this applies equally as well to entrepreneurs.

No entrepreneur knows what the future will bring. We’ve all seen the chart where the straight line growth is compared to the real up and down path a venture takes. We’ve all heard of the trough of disillusionment (or despair). Just because we can’t predict it, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be prepared for it.

Hamming approaches it from the viewpoint of learning and thinking. “Learning to Learn” is the subtitle of the book. Although the book uses various aspects of science and engineering to demonstrate, he is not teaching science. He is teaching how to think about science and engineering.

That reminded me of one of my favorite phrases as an entrepreneur coach. I saw my purpose as a coach not to tell a founder just what to do in any given situation, but to help the entrepreneur think through developing their business.

I certainly can’t claim to be a Hamming.

The guy literally shared an office with Claude Shannon (the father of information theory and yeah, the one the AI software is named for) at Bell Labs. Hamming could be called the father of error correction theory (among other things).

But I respect what he saw as the difference between knowing the rote next step to take (something for which one can be trained) and knowing how to think about one’s situation (which he distinguishes as education).

We make decisions every day as founders that are steeped in uncertainty - where we don’t know what the exact right next step should be. We can’t be trained for every possible step in what, for many of us, is a brand new field (or at least a brand new business or product line). But, we can use an educated approach - and do it with what Hamming calls style.

Style.

Think of an artist. I know several here in Fort Wayne who have developed their own recognizable styles. I can identify their work with a glance.

To Hamming, the mere identification or standing out is not the key. He sees having a style as having your own way to achieve greatness. For my artist friends, their artistic style is how they have chosen to make their work great (and part of that includes standing out from the crowd).

Part of your own style can be a thoughtful, educated approach to decision making. Being able to handle the day to day bounce.

Part of it can indeed be your training. Have you learned the craft of your business (like my artist friends have learned the craft of their art)? Are you an expert (or at least have strong expertise in your field)?

A big part of your style can be your leadership approach. Are you confident? Are you a founder who takes action? Are you ethical in your dealings? Are you a giver? Do you have a visionary sense?

I leave you with two big questions.

Finally, my entrepreneur friends, when the future comes, will you be ready for it? How will you achieve your own sense of greatness?

Photo by Iswanto Arif on Unsplash

Years ago I facilitated an annual Youth Entrepreneurship Symposium, a fancy way of saying we brought 100 to 150 high school students together in a gymnasium, formed them into small teams, and had them research, invent, and pitch a new product concept over the course of 6 hours or so. Yeah, it was a busy day!

The product they would be designing was always picked ahead of time to be something that students used and understood. For example, one year I asked them to design new concepts for “Not Your Father’s Cellphone”, a cellphone for people their age.

Step one was always to do some customer research. They interviewed one another to determine what they loved, hated, and wanted in a cellphone (now you see why we picked a product that students used - they could be both interviewer and interviewee).

After they had completed some interviews, I went around the gym with a mic, asking what interviewers had learned. One answer was, “the battery”. A lot of students nodded their heads in agreement - they had heard this, too.

Then I asked a question.

“What did they mean by ‘the battery’? More battery life? Smaller size? Lighter? Easier to replace? Easier to recharge?”

Crickets.

That was the moment when the students learned to ask, “Why?” or “What do you mean by that?” when they do customer research.

• To clarify.

• To understand fully what the customer wanted or didn’t want.

• To not assume based on their own knowledge.

• To not stop until they really understood.

• To not stop when they heard a feature without finding out why the feature was valuable.

This has always reminded me of Plato’s cave allegory.

For those of you steeped in the classics, yes I know that the allegory goes into much more subtle depth, but it starts with the simple premise that a group of people can only observe their world through shadows on the cave wall.

In Plato’s story, their heads were fixed in place. In our story, researchers are always free to ask another question. Our heads are not being held in place (unless you consider our assumptions, biases, or time constraints to be fetters).

A laundry list of features is not a design or a specification.

Features are solutions. You can list them without even knowing why they are valuable or what they are being used for. But, before you design a solution (or an entire product concept that contains multiple features), it is best to know what customers want to accomplish or avoid - and why. Plus how those different things that they want work or fit together.

The art of product design is the art of combining solutions (individual features) together in a coherent product concept. You can’t create a concept that is coherent without understanding the why behind it.

The art of product design is also the art of creating something that works well for the humans who will use it. Considering the human interactions with a product in your design is essential to coherence.

It all starts with deep understanding. Every great product you’ve experienced is a result of a design team’s deep understanding of what you value.

As an entrepreneur and innovator, that is what you owe to your customers!

Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton 1689 - by Godfrey Kneller (public domain)

Wikipedia paraphrases Newton’s 1st Law of Motion as “A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless it is acted upon by a force.” As NASA says, “This tendency to resist changes in a state of motion is inertia.”

Does your startup seem like “a body at rest”? Is your business stuck “in motion at a constant speed”? Is that constant speed way too low?

Move!

You could make a plan and then patiently wait for some random force to act on your business. Maybe in some iteration of some multi-verse, A16Z will swoop in and bestow your business with capital. Maybe in some other iteration Tesla will give you a huge contract and a Tesla to tool around in. Although I doubt it.

Move!

Competencies of an entrepreneur

In prior articles I’ve talked about what I call the three competencies of an entrepreneur: think, build, sell.

One way to be a body at rest is to not progress past thinking about your business. To move, you need to build something. Make that product or that prototype. If a product or prototype is built, then to move you need to sell.

Easy Peasy. Sounds simple, eh?

Move your business forward. Take some action. Build something. Sell something.

We’ve all heard (and probably said) most of the counters.

• It’s not ready.

• If it’s not right, people will hate it. I may not get a second chance.

• I’m afraid that people will notice it’s not totally finished.

• I keep thinking of things to add.

• I don’t know what exactly to build.

• I don’t have all of the skills to build it.

• I don’t have the financing to build it.

Newton wasn’t worried about your feelings. He was just stating a fact. In entrepreneurial terms, if you don’t make something, and then sell it, you don’t have a business. You have an idea. An idea is a body at rest.

But it actually IS simple.

Does it have to be totally “ready”? No, make a crude prototype or even a brochure-ish mockup. Show it to prospective customers. Learn from them. You are now moving. That is sales work (early on, to be true, but sales work nonetheless). You’ve gained some speed and conquered intertia.

Don’t know exactly what to build? Great, show what you have to prospective customers and listen to what else they want (or don’t want). You don’t have to portray it as the finished cast-in-stone take-it-or-leave-it product. Have a discussion. Your learning will, in fact, be better if you listen to people in the market than if you just live in your own head.

Don’t have the skills or financing? Do you have a computer to make a brochure-like prototype with? Can you make a one-pager? Can you talk about your concept with people? Do it. Learn. Use that knowledge to secure pre-order traction that can lead to financing, which can in turn lead to the ability to acquire a partner who has those skills you lack.

Newton’s 1st Law of Motion (or Entrepreneurship) stated positively

The 1st law is written in terms of what doesn’t happen. Let’s fix that.

You don’t have to jump from being at rest at point A straight to full growth at point E. You can steadily move to B, then to C, then to D, and eventually to E.

Move!

Photo by Eli Nir on Unsplash

Recently, I’ve seen a few real life examples of people who I would call downers or doomers. By that I mean someone who vocally disagrees with your thinking or doubts your ability to succeed. Openly. In your face. Unsolicited. Sometimes maliciously. Yikes!

Downers

I recently saw a friend post some well-reasoned thoughts on Facebook and ask for others’ thoughts (most of you are already cringing). The topic was closely related to his entrepreneurial field and expertise. He wanted to start a discussion.

And he sure did! But, while the majority of the replies were themselves well-reasoned, a small minority were nasty ad hominem attacks!

Downers are out there, my friends. The digital distance of social media has made it easy for someone to attack instead of reason - with little to no consequence for them.

But there is a consequence for you. You expend some energy dealing with a complete stranger who calls you an idiot. At the very least, you have to read it and silently resolve to move on without a fight. Sounds easy, but it takes energy. Energy you could otherwise be spending in a productive way.

Doomers

Over the years, I’ve seen many entrepreneurs hear from people that they should abandon the idea of entrepreneurship and go find a “real” job. I’ve heard young entrepreneurs advised to give up their thoughts of entrepreneurship because they were too young or for a myriad of other reasons. I’ve heard advisors or mentors say, “That’ll never work.”

Doomers are also out there, my friends. And it turns out that some of them can be quite close to you. Friends, counselors, teachers, family members, mentors, or other authority figures. In some cases, you simply can’t avoid them.

Unlike the distant social media downer, these doomers often are talking directly to you face-to-face. Unlike the downers, they (usually) don’t make personal attacks. They give what they feel is good advice. But it is negative.

Their advice is often well-intended, and it often comes from a place of real caring. But it is negative.

Doomers, too, cause you to expend energy dealing with their advice. Like downers, they don’t want to discuss or debate (try it and you just waste more energy for no purpose). They just want you to do what they say. Hearing your side is not important to them. For an entrepreneur who is young and just starting out, that can be maddening.

What can you do?

Let me be really clear. I do not have a great answer for you. I wish I did.

• The answer can’t be to never engage, to never ask for discussion.

• The answer can’t be to grow some really thick skin and never listen to anyone about anything.

• The answer can’t be to tell your friends, teachers, or family members to fuck off.

• The answer can’t be debate. Neither downers nor doomers want to debate.

But, I do have a few suggestions.

As I mentioned in last Wednesday’s article, sometimes what you are hearing is just someone’s own insecurities. This is especially true in the case of doomers who are close to you. They care, but their frame of reference isn’t the same as yours, so they can’t see a path to success. You can recognize that (just not publicly or to their face, of course) and move on.

Downers, on the other hand, are reflecting their own agitated state of mind. Sometimes they just like to stir up trouble. Sometimes arguments in public are fun for them. Again, you can recognize that and move on. They are why social media platforms allow you to block people.

The idea is to minimize the energy downers and doomers steal from you.

In addition, you can find support from people who believe in you. Every city or town has some community or group of entrepreneurs. For example, if you are around Northeast Indiana, look up Fort Wayne Serial Entrepreneurs. Then you can talk with people who understand an entrepreneur’s mindset, challenges, and successes. If your town doesn’t have a group, maybe you can start one. It could start as simply as just two of you over coffee.

If you have other ideas about how to live with downers and doomers, please leave a comment and share it. Comments are open.

If you just want to call me an idiot for writing this, also leave a comment and do that. How else am I going to find out who to block and avoid? LOL

Have fun out there, entrepreneurs!

Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash

Dear Unnamed Ambitious Young Entrepreneur

I hear you, and I get it.

• You want to make a mark on the world. A big mark. A huge mark. An important mark.

• You know what you want to do. You know what needs to be done. You can see it clearly.

• But right now you are a student. Or, as the haters and doubters would say, “just” a student.

• It is not altogether clear how to start and how to proceed. Sometimes even you have doubt. The goal is so big.

Because you will hear what I am going to say next from others, I want you to hear it from me first, in the proper context. You heard part of it last night when we met.

The huge goal you see so clearly and want to bring to life is, in fact, doable for you.

Plenty of others will cast doubt on your vision. They will say it’s impossible.

For them, that is true. But it is not true for you.

They are not you. They don’t have your vision or your ambition. For you, it is, in fact, quite doable. You’ve already started!

Whenever people comment negatively about your vision (and they will), they are unknowingly revealing their own insecurities or inability to do it. Since they don’t have your vision or ambition, they can’t see a way to success. So they cast doubt and voice negativity. What they voice is merely a reflection of their own thoughts and insecurities.

But they are not you!

Yet, the fact remains that your vision and goal is huge.

You can’t knock this one out over the weekend. It will take (at least most of) your lifetime, and probably longer. Literally.

You can’t do it alone. It will take an organization and a community - all aligned with that huge vision. A huge vision requires some sheer manpower.

You have skills, for sure. More than simply vision. But not necessarily all of the skills needed to build what you want to build at scale. In addition to manpower, an organization and community will provide those skills

That said, here are some things to think about as you start.

Your primary goal is to build an organizational structure that will scale worldwide and outlive you. This structure will seem like a skeleton at first (today the structure is just you!), but it will provide a framework upon which to build something that is large and permanent.

• As founder, you will set the vision and model the ethic and culture for the organization. You will be the primary spokesperson for the organization as it grows.

• To facilitate growth, your job is to attract and recruit people who are excited and passionate about your vision. People with complementary talents to yours. People located in other cities or countries. You may want to keep your eyes peeled for one or two special people who could be co-founders. People who share your zeal and vision. People who could share a leadership role with you during the early days … and beyond.

• You will be the primary fundraiser and salesperson for the foreseeable future. This includes gaining any grant funding, investment, or sales from products or services. In a new organization, customers or partners naturally look to the founder. This will be true even if you add cofounders.

• As time moves on and the organization grows, you will find that scaling a venture hinges on recruiting and hiring, often at a rapid pace to support growth. Especially early on, you will want to recruit people who are excited about the vision, ethic, and culture of the organization, but who also bring it needed skills. Skills in operations, sales, recruiting and hiring, finance, marketing, research, etc.
  
  People who fit the vision, ethic, and culture are way more important to hire than pure function experts. Assuming your hires are reasonably skilled and willing to learn (which will probably be a part of your organizational ethic anyway), they can grow into functional expertise. But a function expert who feels only meh about your vision will not be happy (or with you) very long.

• We’ve talked about how community is important to your goal. Your organization and the community that surrounds it are two different things. Develop them separately. They will interact and interrelate. But they are seperate groups. Your structure will include both.

• Oh, don’t forget to celebrate every success, even small ones! It helps your organization and community become and remain vibrant.

If all that isn’t enough (LOL), here is something to do right now.

You probably noticed that so far I haven’t mentioned doing any work to directly apply toward your goal. No products. No services. Not even any research.

Thinking about structure is all well and good, but in the short term you have to build something that helps you meet your goal. Not just an organization or community. The first tangible product or service. Something that shows traction.

It is important to build something that starts to make your name and reputation as a leader or expert in your field. What you build today will be important to help you build the organization and community I talked about above. And, with any luck, it will also make money.

I know you are a skilled researcher. When we meet next, let’s talk about how you can leverage your existing (and future) research to gain traction. You can do that yourself without having a team at your side. You can do that right now. You’ve already started the work. We can talk about how that asset becomes a product, a service, or some other form of traction. I have ideas. Let’s talk.

p.s. Not only can you do it, Unnamed Ambitious Young Entrepreneur, but I think your business idea is tremendous. I see the value and how it will make great postive impact in the world. Kudos! I’m thrilled to be able to say some day, “I knew him when …”.

Sincerely.

Steve Franks

For all of you other ambitious young entrepreneurs.

Yes, I wrote this letter for a real individual. Someone who is thinking about these issues right now. I did not mention a name or talk about any of the business’ specifics. Everything I said above is real. I just disguised it to protect confidentiality.

But, I wrote this (in that disguised manner) knowing that there are plenty of you out there right now who need to hear the same things. More of you who have big aspirations and wonder how (or even if) to start.

Here are your takeaways.

• Your vision is doable. Unless, of course you are trying to breaking the laws of physics or humanity. Haters gonna hate. Doubters gonna doubt. They are not you!

• It will likely take time and a team. As the proverb goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”. You don’t have to go fast. If your vision is huge, you can’t go fast.

• Find your people. Those who not only agree with your vision and want to be a part of it, but also agree with your ethic and culture . Not those motivated just by the opportunity to make money.

• Start building something that cements your traction and reputation in your field. That “something” can be small. It can build over time. You don’t have to swallow the elephant in one bite. Just start. Become known in your field. Become known as a builder in your field.

Lastly, I repeat, YOUR VISION IS DOABLE. Do it!

Photo by sina senior on Unsplash

Tactics, strategy, and vision are three separate viewpoints or dimensions of a business. But, here’s the catch. Your business lives in all three of those dimensions simultaneously. Tending to your business can be a balancing act.

See the previous article for a probably-too-in-depth view of the three-part simultaneous framework.

Tactics

If you ignore the tactical level, chances are that things just won’t get done. Strategies aren’t achieved because the work to achieve goals isn’t being done (or done right). Visions go unmet.

If you overly focus on the tactical level, things will get done and done right. But, will they be the right things? Strategies and visions can be ignored in the process.

Strategy

If you ignore the strategic level, chances are that plenty of work will be done, but your vision may go unadressed and unachieved. Your tactics may work fine, but without strategic alignment they won’t be effective or purposeful.

If you overly focus on strategy (to the exclusion of tactics and vision), you may lose direction at the extremes. By that, I mean that not giving tactics their due could keep you from doing the ground level work to achieve those strategies you worked so hard to develop. Or, that with less focus on vision, your strategies can wander away from the main driving impact you hoped to create in the world (or in your market).

Vision

If you ignore vision, you run the risk of wandering somewhat aimlessly without a guiding purpose. Your strategies and tactics can work well - and you can make money - but to what purpose?

If you overly focus on vision, the practical side (tactics and strategy) can get sidelined. You have a great vision, but no way to get there.

All of these relationships are pretty obvious, aren’t they?

It’s just a matter of balance. If your organization is out of balance, some areas will suffer. You knew that.

What aren’t obvious are the second order effects

The effects that reverberate throughout the organization.

• What happens to employee morale when tactics are overloaded or missing? Hmm, better watch turnover.

• How does the market respond to a company that is clearly out of balance? Think they don’t notice? Ha. They are the main recipients. Hmm, better also watch sales or profitability.

• When things don’t get done or achieved, how does leadership respond? Is turf protected? Is blame or shade thrown? How does that affect turnover - or hiring?

I won’t list more examples, but I “leave it as an exercise for the reader” to consider what else being out of balance can do to a company, its people, its customers, and its brand.

Pleasant dreams, my entrepreneurial friends!

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

As humans we all have three identities - three ways to look at ourselves, three viewpoints into what it means to be Steve or you.

1. We are all just billions of parts, atoms that have combined in a way to make you and to make me. The parts we are made of are themselves alive. Each of us is a living process made up of billions of parts that work together as cells, tissue, organs, and entire physical systems.

2. Those systems together form a coherent you and a coherent me. Although each of us is a process that changes every millisecond, we each are a coherent whole. I’m a Steve. You’re a you.

3. Yet, you and I are just parts of a much larger entity, the Earth (just like atoms are parts of you and I). We live as parts in a much larger process. It continues. The Earth is just a part of the Solar System. The Solar System is just a part of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way is just a part of a cluster of galaxies.

So, who am I? Well, it depends.

• In one viewpoint, I can see myself as a collection of parts.

• In another, I see myself as the coherent entity Steve.

• In a third viewpoint, I see myself as one of many parts of a much bigger entity.

By now most of you are wondering what the heck my point is. Some of you are probably wondering if I just found some leftover acid from the 1970’s and ate it (no, I just enjoy thinking about the world and my/our place in it).

My point is simple. Well, at least it seems that way to me.

Your business as a combination of parts.

This is perhaps the easiest viewpoint to see. We already tend to look at our business as a collection of working processes. How’s your sales process, marketing process, production process, etc.?

• Is each one working OK?

• Are they working together OK?

• Are you missing any parts?

• Are any of your processes trending negatively? Or trending positively?

• What should I be doing to grow or maintain those processes?

When I work out, I am exercising my muscular system, my heart and circulatory system, my respiratory system, etc. I do that because I know that the entity called Steve depends on those parts working well. The same goes for our businesses.

In one sense, this is the tactical viewpoint.

Your business as a coherent entity.

“Seeing” your business as a coherent whole may be difficult, especially if you don’t have a physical storefront. A business isn’t a physical entity. I can’t observe and feel how well it is working like I can observe and feel my body.

• What is success for your business?

• How can you observe whether you are achieving success or not?

For my physical coherent entity, success is health. I can observe changes in stamina, strength, weight, physical look, etc. For a business, success is defined as strategic goals or objectives. They would be observed by KPIs or other measures.

This is the strategy viewpoint.

Your business as a part of a larger entity.

Your business does not exist in a vacuum (which is good, because by yourself you’d have no customers). It exists as part of something larger. You can define that something as a community, a market, a niche, a customer group, a workforce, a group of competitors, a city, a nation, the world, etc. Some would say talk about this an ecology. Especially for entrepreneurs, you are used to hearing about the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

I’d like to suggest that you think not just of the larger entity itself, but think of your role in that larger entity.

• Why does your business do what it does?

• What is your business’ purpose?

• What impact do you want to make in whatever larger entity you choose?

You can define your larger entity as simply as a customer community. Or you can add nuance by considering how to make geographic, social, environmental, or some other kind of impact. But the basic thought is to have a “why” (other than just making money).

For many of us humans, our why will include our family, the community in which we live, or a particular social group we favor. It allows us to live a fulfilling life - by having something to fulfill.

This is the vision viewpoint.

TL;DR Takeaways

• Humans and businesses can be viewed through multiple viewpoints.

• One three-part framework is 1. a collection of parts, 2. a coherent whole, and 3. one of a number of parts of a larger entity. We live in those 3 realms simultaneously.

• For businesses, these three viewpoints roughly correspond to tactics, strategy, and vision.

• Each viewpoint, I believe, gives you different insight into your business.

Overly focusing on just one viewpoint can cause problems. The next article will talk about that.

Photo by Vadym Alyekseyenko on Unsplash

Every startup entrepreneur has heard the seemingly-conflicting advice.

• Launch quickly - get into the market.

• Master your product and market - or be an also-ran.

Let’s have a look at mastery.

Whether they coined the term or not (I don’t know), my friends at 1517 Fund like to use the term “hyper-fluency”. That refers to the combination of having an extremely thorough knowledge of a field along with the ability to talk about it effectively with anyone - meaning someone with zero knowledge of the field, with an expert, or with someone in between.

To me, that implies mastery of the field. I’ve felt that at times when coaching an entrepreneur. Having been involved in the field for over two decades, I’ve seen a lot. Over years, I grew to understand the field. I felt the confidence to enter any conversation, understand the entrepreneur’s issues, and be helpful.

Mastery is not perfection.

Did that confidence mean that I knew every answer? Ha! Nope.

That I knew every entrepreneur’s market or field? Again, nope.

That I’d been in that entrepreneur’s exact shoes? Of course not.

Did it mean that I wouldn’t make mistakes? I wish.

I felt confident because I could understand how to approach any entrepreneurial issue. How to think about it - and help others think about it. Not because I knew every answer or had foreseen every possible situation that could possibly occur.

Mastery, to me is the ability to truly know how to navigate a field. I say “truly” to compare it to a Dunning-Kruger false sense. As the subtitle above suggests, it comes from “doing the work”.

Which leads us to launching quickly.

Mastery requires real, hands-on experience. In my case as a coach, it didn’t appear until I had talked with a few thousand entrepreneurs.

I had to start somewhere. I couldn’t just start magically armed with the knowledge gained from a few thousand conversations I hadn’t had yet. During my early days as an entrepreneur coach, I was developing my skills and knowledge. I had to launch in order to acquire that real, hands-on experience. I had to do the work.

Like all of you who are just launching, and wondering if you should acquire more skills before you launch, I launched and did the best I could. That doesn’t mean that I was a total doofus (or that you are).

I had to be helpful and effective, and I was. It wasn’t perfect. It got better over time as I put in more work and gained the knowledge that moved me closer to mastery.

That’s what I expect each of you entrepreneur readers are doing right now. Doing the work that leads you to mastery in your field!

TL;DR

Mastery requires work.

Doing work requires launching.

We all have to start somewhere.

So start!

Photo by Scott Mortimer on Unsplash

My soon-to-be-released customer research app, Foundation, helps users organize qualitative customer input like interviews and listening sessions. The app is built, initially tested, and I am now writing demo interviews and demo listening sessions in order to show off its capabilities. To do this, I am "interviewing myself” and playing different user roles. That has caused me to think about my product using different viewpoints than my own.

In particular, one viewpoint has led me to vastly simplify the program’s framework (in regard to the product interactions that the software tracks).

• Originally, I embraced a very thorough, open, and emergent framework that required users to create and define each product interaction. I like having a wide open framework where I, as the user, can personally define the interactions however I see fit. It has advantages that I know from experience.

• But as I interviewed myself from other user viewpoints, it became clear to me that one of the two top features for the software is its ability to organize research easily and quickly.

• To my chagrin, I realized that an open, emergent framework would slow down that process. Worse yet, it could be a distraction.

• The solution was to simplify. Create a pre-existing set of “standard” product interactions. Leave a little room for multiple use cases and the ability for the user to add bespoke interactions, but provide a standard set of interactions that could work for any company and any product. Take any comment from any interview and paste it into one of the existing interactions. No thinking about a new interaction title or where it fits in the scheme of product interactions. Easy, peasy.

Making it simple won’t be easy (for me).

Creating those standard product interactions won’t be difficult. I had already planned to include a template of “starter interactions”.

What’s not easy is me changing my original viewpoint. The very word “standard” scares me. I’m probably as biased as they come on this issue, but I think that creating a bespoke list of transactions helps the users make this software their own. There is value to thinking through how to name an interaction, why it is different from others and needs its own bucket, and why it shouldn’t be lumped into some other interaction. It also helps users surface the best design insights for producing high-value innovations. In other words, I believe that there is a solid method to my madness.

On the other hand, I have to remember that the important point of the data is the verbatim customer comments, not the categories (the interactions) where they are organized together. As my mentor Ron used to say, “It doesn’t really matter where the comment goes. The only real sin is to not consider it at all.” He, of course, is the same man who taught me that bespoke interaction “buckets” are highly preferred to a standard list. Ope.

I want my cake, and I want to eat it, too.

My unease comes from the position that the ultimate purpose of Foundation is to help companies innovate - to create breakthrough next generation products. I do not want to compromise the quality of design insights Foundation can produce.

By that, I mean that it must do more than be very simple, easy, and quick for Foundation to organize cluttered and somewhat random customer research like interviews and listening sessions. I trust the Paul Bucheit advice to absolutely nail the top three attributes or features for a product (the rest are in the noise).

Easy and quick organization of that research is one of Foundation’s top three. If it is a hassle to use Foundation to organize research, users won’t use it. So, OK, simple pre-built categories it is. That’s the cake. But …

There is another top must-have attribute (the eating part).

Foundation needs to easily surface high-value design insights from that organized data. For those to emerge, leaving the “standard” world behind is a given. Foundation uses a unique and simple scoring method to help unearth opportunities. But, the way that the customer research is organized could be important for identifying design insights, too.

Let’s figure out how to eat that cake. Actually, let me walk you through my thinking.

Q: Does using standard product interaction categories to organize customer comments totally negate unearthing great design insights?
A: Not at all. The same comments are right there.

Q: So why then, Steve, are you so worried?
A: Well, the granularity of the interactions will not be as deep. There is a greater probability for some differentiating interaction to be lost in the shuffle. I would rather see more specifically-focused (granular) interactions than see a bunch of them clumped together in a wide standard interaction bucket. Plus, the mere thought of being a standardized thinker - rather than an innovative thinker - just sounds like trouble to me.

Q: Can you do both? Simple product interaction categories and focused design insights? Cake and eat it, too?
A: Well, Foundation will certainly allow users to add their own product interactions (that’s how it was originally designed) to the standard set, so there is no reason that they couldn’t. I can make it clear in the documentation or demo videos or workshops that a product interaction that is really just a laundry list of multiple interactions can be broken down into multiple, more granular, interactions. And show how that increases understanding and promotes better ideation.

Q: Is that the answer?
A: We’ll see. I think some users will opt for speed and ease, and be happy with the design insights that a standard level of organization gives. Organizing by product interaction to understand what creates great value for each interaction is a cool organizing framework, period - no matter the granularity. Other users will tweak the product interaction list to their own viewpoint. That will include bespoke product interactions that, in my experience, help them pinpoint how to design value for customers. Some will use that ability more and some less. We’ll see how they use it and adjust accordingly.

Takeaways

My goal here today was to “design in public” and let you readers see my thought process as I consider what features will appear in the launch version of Foundation.

For me and Foundation, I see two essential features of atributes. Two must haves.

1. Must gather customer research easily and quickly.

2. Must identify high-value design insights.

They are related. My instinct tells me that the obvious solution for #1 may detract from #2. But, I don’t see it detracting tremendously, and there are some ways (see my internal Q&A) to mitigate any loss of value to #2. So, I can launch with one feature change (the standard prouct interaction list), but should be watchful for how the key features work in practice.

For you entrepreneurs, I see two takeaways.

1. The Paul Buchheit nail-the-3-top-attributes advice is wonderful. I loved how it helped me clarify my thinking. What are your top three? I’m still looking for my third, but two just might be enough.

2. Thinking through the creation of demo data through the eyes of different customers made me consider their different viewpoints. When I had to play their role and think through answers to product interview questions, it took me out of myself and fostered a product change that dramatically simplified use. Try it!

Oh yeah, if any of you readers would like to see a demo of Foundation, the demo data is almost done - just message or email me.

Thanks for bearing with me through this rambling post. Now go have some cake - and don’t forget to eat it!

Screen capture from X.com

OK, so that wasn’t exactly the quote from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (or the version from Blazing Saddles), But yesterday, I read a tweet from The Knowledge Society that I loved. That’s it above.

Specifically, I loved the line, “The real world doesn’t have a rubric.” It reminded me of the “badges” quote, which gave me a chuckle. But more than that, it perfectly explains why agency and invention are so darn important.

As most of you readers already know, I’ve worked a lot with high school students - both in entrepreneurship and leadership. My personal mission is to “Enable the next generation to build a better tomorrow.” A better tomorrow doesn’t rise from duplicating yesterday’s vision. It rises from independent thought. Stated differently, there is no rubric for a better tomorrow. There is no 30 year master plan somewhere for making the world a better place.

Rubrics explain the known world.

They score how well you adhere to an already-created vision or set of rules. To make the world a better place, you need to go beyond what is already envisioned. You need to invent. That’s how you create something new, something different, something better.

Agency is a precursor to invention.

If you believe you can’t do it, you won’t. If you believe you can’t do it, you won’t even try. Lack of agency stops you before you even begin.

If you believe you can do it, you will make an attempt. You won’t always be successful in total, but you will always learn something in the process. Every attempt will get you even closer to the result (the “it”) you envision. Pretty soon, you’ll find you have created a better tomorrow.

A coach or teacher can’t be or define your rubric.

YOUR rubric. what YOU want to accomplish, is entirely up to YOU. Last year, I mentored a high school student who is an excellent thinker. (He’s also a subscriber to this Substack. Hi, Isaiah!). At one meeting I asked him to tell me something I had advised him to do that he thought wasn’t right. He thought for a bit and then answered plus explained why he wanted to do something differently. Perfect! He had his own vision of the future! It made great sense, but most of all it was HIS idea, HIS invention, drawn from HIS agency! Yay!

A coach or teacher shouldn’t be or define your rubric.

My goal was to start him on the path to not need a coach or mentor. I was pretty sure he would respond the way he did. I’ve known plenty of other students who did not or would not have responded that way. I attribute that to the decade or so that they’ve always been handed a rubric and trained to follow the rules.

Even today, we hear people extoll “being coachable” as a key attribute for a student or a founder. If you are a mentor or a coach, I urge you to put “being coachable” aside. Being a good rule follower doesn’t help a student think. Being a good rule follower doesn’t help a founder navigate inventing a new product. Simply being a good rule follower is not a virtue. Thinking for yourself, on the other hand, is a virtue. Our job as coaches, mentors, or teachers is to slowly move ourselves out of the picture while helping the student or mentee grab some agency and invent something new.

Maybe that something new will be a better tomorrow!

Photo by Redd Francisco on Unsplash

When I say, “entrepreneur”, what comes to your mind?

Most people, I believe, would think of the stereotypical startup founder. Usually young (a misconception, by the way), terribly independent, usually a techie, with ambition to found a company that will scale to become a unicorn.

In Indiana, my state, much of the entrepreneurial infrastructure is focused on scalable startups (although I’m seeing the beginninjg of a shift to small town downtown and family businesses). The investment community, for sure, is focused on the high-return scalable startup world - it’s just the way the economics work, nothing personal. But that thinking sometimes finds its way down to the high school and university entrepreneur world (where I worked for years and now do pro bono work).

That’s crazy!

We ask high school and university students to develop business models and investor pitches using the same formula and sometimes even pitch deck templates as a scalable tech unicorn. That is analogous to asking all high school athletes to train the same way Kobe trained! They are not all little Elons or little Kobes.

Can we expand our view of what an entrepreneur is or does? It shouldn’t solely be modeled on the one elite segment of entrepreneurs.

There are many other ways to be entrepreneurial and to develop entrepreneurial skills.

If I were to say, “be entrepreneurial” instead of “entrepreneur” your definitions increase by an order of magnitude.

• Start a scalable startup

• Start a nonprofit

• Start a small side gig

• Be a part of a family business

• Run a business you don’t own

• Run a division or department

• Start or run a program

• Start an event

• Just invent something new

• Probably many others

One commonality among them all is bringing something new to the world. Another commonality is that each uses or develops entrepreneurial skills.

When I first started working in the entreprneur coaching field, I felt that any sort of entrepreneurship a person did was a win. Why? Because once they have a taste of entrepreneurship - and are at least somewhat successful with it - they will keep that knowledge for life! I saw high school entrepreneurs persist for years. One started four ventures before finding his first sustainable success. I think their first three “lesser” businesses were important steps to the fourth.

High schools and universities should teach entrepreneurial skills via multiple models.

I love how entrepreneur education is now ingrained in high schools and universities. But, we are too reliant on the predominant scalable startup model.

Can we let the student select the entrepreneurial model right for them? Some students might want to start a scable startup. That’s fine. Exceedlingly hard while being a student, but fine. Go for it. But others can learn entrepreneurial skills by starting a side gig, a program, or even simply building out a one-time event!

Every approach to entrepreneurship teaches the three basic competencies.

• How to think entrepreneurially

• How to build products, teams, and companies

• How to sell products and yourself

And, frankly, developing students’ abilities and experience with smaller businesses or programs is very practical. There are many more non-scalable businesses than scalable ones in our economy. So much so that statistics say that they, in aggregate, play a major role in leading job growth.

TL;DR Recap

No matter how they do it, each and every practicing entrepreneur gets a taste of what its like to bring something new to the world. And when they do, they internalize the feeling and knowledge of how do it again and again. And that makes our economy vibrant.

Photo by Katie Drazdauskaite on Unsplash

I had coffee this week with a friend who is one of the best high school entrepreneurship teachers in Indiana, and who is also a subscriber to this Substack. Hi, Michelle!

As we talked about the nuances of teaching high schoolers entrepreneurship, we eventually reached the topic of exploration. In today’s academic world many students expect the old school “memorize the lecture or textbook and take a test” approach. That approach simply doesn’t work for teaching entrepreneurship. Yet students are so used to it that they expect it.

For entrepreneurship students, exploratory sprints are the perfect start.

We talked about using exploration in the up front part of starting a venture. Sometimes students are asked to pick a business idea before they fully understand what they are getting into. A series of exploratory sprints can prevent students from making a too-hasty decision.

• A short sprint can help a student understand if they truly like a field or type of business.

• A short sprint can help a student understand if they have the skills or team to accomplish a business.

A few short sprints enable a student to “try on” a few business ideas before locking in a single idea.

For students who have had teachers do a lot of the “here’s what to think” for them over a decade or so, it also introduces the students to personal agency and responsibility - two soft skills that are crucial for entrepreneurs - and sets the tone for the rest of the course.

The Lean Startup model places exploration after the business idea is selected.

Some form of Business Model Canvas is often a starting poinbt for students. It assumes the entrepreneur has a business idea in mind. It focuses on exploring how to elaborate and validate that idea. It also assumes that the entrepreneur can start over from scratch if the original idea doesn’t work out.

But, for a student who has inadvertently selected an idea in a field that they find later that they don’t like or an idea that requires skills that they don’t have, the class is already rolling (the train has left the station). The curriculum doesn’t necessarily provide for starting over from scratch. Ope.

Why shouldn’t exploration be a part of every entrepreneur’s journey?

I will argue that front-loading exploratory sprints should be a part of every startup entrepreneur’s plan.

Once you start elaborating and validating an idea’s business model in depth, you create inertia. Sometimes you are tempted to just keep pivoting - rather than toss the idea out and start over. In my own case. I persisted with my first two views of my current business far too long before the pivot that got me where I am today. Thankfully, an advisor who suggested I focus moved me toward the idea that I could have explored up front (I knew it up front) - saving lots of time.

I’m changing my advising approach to selecting a business idea.

For the past few years, I’ve used a combination of wide open ideation coupled with paring the ideas down based on where your interests and skills lie. The technique ends with a short list of business ideas, at which point I suggest that you listen to your heart to learn which one is “right”. It can be completely done within hours. I still like the technique as far as finding the short list of candidate business ideas.

But now, I will suggest doing short sprints to quickly develop each idea on the short list a bit - and then selecting the one that makes the most sense to you. A few weeks of up front exploration can shine light on those few business ideas and likely provide some clues to which will work best.

Happy exploring, my fellow entrepreneurs!

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

This week I talked with my godson, who is a neuroscientist in a PhD program at Notre Dame. He noticed an interesting similarity between scientific researchers and startup entrepreneurs. It goes like this.

I see the similarity - releasing something before it is perfect, and I don’t believe it is a coincidence. Here’s why.

A researcher’s work is never done. An entrepreneur’s work is never done.

Entrepreneurs know that the product will never be perfect, that markets change, and that waiting for perfection is a formula for never getting to market.

Researchers know that there is always more to study and that it can’t all be done at once.

Learning is valuable. So is learning what to learn next.

Researchers are doing their work explicitly for learning. They want to learn what else there is to learn - to keep advancing the field.

Entrepreneurs use MVPs for customer validation and learning how to modify their product for launch. Sometimes this means learning what they yet need to learn to move their business forward.

Funding is important.

My godson pointed out that for scientific research, publication is very much related to grant funding. Ongoing study is also very much a goal (since a researcher’s work is indeed never done).

Entrepreneurs, of course, often pitch investors and depend on feedback from MVPs to demonstrate customer validation.

Time to market is important.

Entrepreneurs want to get revenue flowing. Some want to be first to market with a proprietary solution. This can (and should) lead to quick, simple prototype MVPs.

Researchers want to be the first to publish. This can lead to simpler research, with more complete research left for further studies.

Why these similarities are NOT coincidental.

I’d argue that scientists act entrepreneurially. They seek to bring something new to the world. Novel research, new value for the world. They act with agency. They produce results in the form of a study rather than a product, but results nonetheless. Sounds very entrepreneurial to me.

The Lean Startup process that many entrepreneurs follow is clearly informed by scientific process. Have a hypothesis, test it (with customers using an MVP), modify the product with what you learn from customers (like additional studies), repeat until you’ve dialed in product/market fit in or proven that your hypothesis was not correct.

Have fun you entrepreneurial scientists and scientific entrepreneurs!