Founder Loses Their Cool? It’s Cool.

As a youngster, my mom doled out words of wisdom as I left for school each day. One often-repeated phrase as I passed her by the doorway was, “be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.” With that in mind, and with the permission of the startup founder, I share the following excerpt from an email that I received after deciding not to invest in this entrepreneur’s business:

If you are one taking an unconventional path of a startup, recognize that there are an unconventional set of rules…

If you are a first-time founder, you will likely lack in experience, knowledge and/or judgment, and are constantly “figuring it out.”

It’s not a gentle ride. You will be jostled and jilted.

On an emotional level, when I see a founder lose their composure, I feel alive. It’s a reminder that with every passing day, they are feeling the pressure of building their product, landing that customer, and hearing a Yes from other would-be stakeholders they are pursuing — all while savings shrivel as runway wanes, usually in parallel to the eroding patience and confidence of family and friends.

Ironically it seems that we only praise the bits of asinine eccentricity in founders after they’ve succeeded. I think we lose both the point and the moment of action by delaying, so here is my shout-out to the entrepreneurs who struggle to be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove. If you care deeply about the problem you are solving — deeply enough to take regular risk in sharing that idea with prospective teammates, prospective investors, and prospective customers — then the moments of losing your cool, completely, may happen. Go ahead and lose it. We’ll give you a mulligan.