Babbling VC

How to Be §$%&'ing Good at What You Do

Just finished an interesting breakfast conversation and thought I should blog this. I was talking about teachers, teaching, schools and entrepreneurs with a future teacher. That's the kind of things that easily crawl into a breakfast conversation round here on a Sunday morning. Anyway, we came to the point of discussing who our favorite teachers were and I thought about why they were such good teachers (one of them happens to be Mr. Edwards at Bergenfield High School....wonder if he's still there). Further, we were comparing the approach these teachers take to how entrepreneurs tick. Somehow, I always take the angle of how entrepreneurs tick.....it's a VC thing I guess.

So, basically I made the point that many people go to work to earn their salary. That's it, they're happy with that. Then there are a lot of people who think if they did something innovative or had a great idea, they would start their own business. Chewed on this for a bit and then I finally made the point that it's something completely different about being a successful entrepreneur (or a great teacher). It's not about doing something different. It's not about doing something innovative. It's also not about working hard. It's ALL ABOUT loving what you do. The rest comes naturally. From teachers to entrepreneurs, the best of the best simply love what they do. It's as easy as that. We so often get sidetracked by the details....getting things done, tipping points, outliers, chasms and so forth.....all blah, blah for someone to write books about and get at your hard earned money. Yes, many of those books.....and you know the ones I am talking about.....have great advice and I like to read them too. Yet, at the end of the day it's as simple as loving what you do. If you don't, find something you do love doing. 

Side-note: Some may ask how do you know whether you love doing something? Well, I guess this is very subjective, yet for me it's pretty simple. Do I get out of bed at least 50% of the time or more really looking forward to it. For me, it's more like 90% of the time I jump out of bed, head off to work and look forward to the day. There's always crap days but the majority of the time, you better be excited by what you have planned for the day, challenges included. Otherwise, what's the point!

Venture Capital and a Good Portion of Luck

As the title implies, that's what you'll need to be successful. Mark has a great post about the nature vs. nurture argument in regards to entrepreneurs which was triggered as a response to Vivek Wadhwa who thought otherwise. The short version is that Mark believes in nature whereas Vivek believes in nurture. Mark also posted on what makes a great entrepreneur so he laid out on the table the characteristics he believes are necessary to be successful as an entrepreneur. Fred Wilson also has his take on entrepreneurs being born and not made.  

Well, I wanted to throw in some of my own comments from 10+ years observation as a VC. I definitely sway towards the nature argument as do Mark and Fred. Most successful entrepreneurs I've been in contact with simply have it. Same goes for VC's. You simply have many of the qualities as described in Mark's "Entrepreneur DNA" right from the start. For example, it's really tough to learn "competitiveness" or "willingness to take risk". Actually I'd argue it's impossible to "learn" these traits. Same goes for many of the other traits described by Mark. But I'm not going to beat a dead horse. There are plenty of arguments and comments in both Mark's and Fred's post. 

What do I feel is missing in this whole discussion? Well, it's luck! I'm the first to admit that I worked my butt off to be where I am. Yet, I too am the first to admit I've been pretty darn lucky on many occasions. Sure, I was presented with opportunities which I took advantage of but no matter how hard I would of tried, I couldn't of forced many of these opportunities. They simply happened....dumb luck! I met someone, was in the right place, knew something someone else didn't and so forth. Same goes for many of the entrepreneurs whom I have worked with and gotten to know. They happened to be at the right place at the right time. So few companies are actually successful when backed by venture capital. The media obviously celebrates the home-runs and we all love to talk about them. All too often though companies fail. At least half of all VC backed companies implode and go bankrupt. This is the reality of the venture business. Can one prove that success is always sweat and tears or sometimes just dumb luck? No, not really possible to do this. Do you have to work your butt off to make it as an entrepreneur? Yes, it's extremely hard! Yet I would argue that any successful entrepreneur would argue that many times, luck simply swayed the equation in the entrepreneur's favor.