A Founder’s Job

When you’re starting a business, it’s really easy to forget how amazing what you’re doing really is. And understandably so. There’s a lot to consider when starting a business. Is there a market for the problem you’re trying to solve? Do you have the right business partners or founders? How are you going to fund your business initially? The choices you have to make are endless, and it’s normal to get bogged down and stressed. But those decisions are just the details. Give them their due attention, but don’t let them get in the way of the big choice you have to make: Who is your business going to be?

A business is more like a person than anything else. It has a personality. Strengths and weaknesses. And, most importantly, people relate to businesses with the same emotional vocabulary they use with people. So, who is your business going to be?

Ideally, your business will be an amalgam of the best parts of every person on the team. Like a puppet where each person is responsible to pull just the strings they understand best. But it’s usually not obvious who is going to be best at what. Each member of the team is going to have their own strengths and weaknesses. These make up the “nature” of your business. Your job as a business founder, with the help of your advisors, is to choose who your business is going be and nurture your team into becoming that person (or puppet, if you like that image better). It’s a hard job, especially at the beginning when there may only be one or two of you. But it’s also amazingly wonderful, and working to answer that question is a good place to start in providing the leadership your team needs to make your business awesome. Isn’t that why you started your business in the first place?