5 Lessons Batman Teaches Us About Entrepreneurship
If you look closely, Bruce Wayne mirrors the path of an entrepreneur. Here are five ways The Dark Knight shows us all how to be, not the hero we deserve, but the one the world needs right now.
This article discusses plot details of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy. For those who haven’t seen those films, spoiler alert.
I make no secret about the fact that I’ve got a man crush on Batman. He’s my favourite superhero of all time, and in fact, I think the greatest superhero of all time.
There are obvious reasons Batman’s popularity has endured for nearly 80 years. He‘s a bad-ass ninja with cool weapons, pointy ears, and a tattered cape. His dark, brooding image starkly contrasts with the bubblegum, all-American image of Superman.
More notably, Bruce Wayne is a complex, flesh-and-blood character. As a man, he’s wealthy but has no interest in material things. His anger and sadness are tempered by his altruistic drive to help people. As a hero, he has no super powers — just his wits, physical ability, and financial assets, all of which he channels into his tireless, thankless work of being Batman.
Arguably, the best incarnation of Batman in the medium of film is The Dark Knight trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan. One of the many reasons it’s so good is that, unlike many other adaptations of the character, Nolan’s work honors the comic book and holds true to Batman’s mythos.
Batman Begins (2005), the first film in the trilogy, is loosely adapted from The Man Who Falls (1989) comic, which tells the story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman.
The film’s first half employs multiple flashback scenes to show us the events that shaped Bruce Wayne, from the fear he felt falling down a well and being attacked by bats, to witnessing his parents gruesome murders. The story progressively uncovers Bruce Wayne’s evolution into Batman, and it’s enthralling.
Batman’s journey also struck me as entrepreneurial. Here’s why:
1. Deeply understand your audience
As a young man Bruce Wayne leaves Gotham city to shed his celebrity status and trust-fund-baby reputation. He goes on a journey of self discovery, traveling to the far east and even becoming a criminal himself to understand their mind and inner workings.
One character later asks Bruce: “When you lived among the criminals did you start to pity them?”
Bruce replies:
“The first time I stole so that I wouldn’t starve, yes, I lost many assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong. And when I travelled I learned the fear before a crime, and the thrill of success. But I never became one of them.”
Most successful businesses begin by noticing a problem for which there isn’t an adequate solution. But the real work comes with getting into the mind of your customer to learn how they think.
I started Proposify because I felt the pain of managing proposals. But more than that, as a small agency owner I also understood the sting of rejection when I lost a deal. I felt what it was like running a service based business and needing to win proposals to keep the lights on, employees paid, and have a little left over for my own bills. Our product and content resonates with our audience because we understand them. I was them.
Another example is a friend of mine building a startup in the automotive space. To get in the heads of his audience he temporarily took a job selling cars, just to understand what it’s really like and the process behind it.
Great marketing isn’t when you understand your audience, it’s when your audience feels understood by you. The only way to understand your audience is to spend time with them.
2. Focus on your ‘why’
As an entrepreneur you may want to make money, and that’s important, but truly great companies pursue an even greater mission than profts.
In the book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras calls these “Big Hairy Audacious Goals”, or BHAG.
“A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.”
Articulated another way, In Simon Sinek’s popular Ted Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, he echoes the mantra “People don’t care what you do they care why you do it.”
At various points throughout Batman Begins we see three characters who are pivotal in Bruce’s life shape his ‘why’.
- His father tells a young Bruce Wayne that while Gotham has been good to their family the city is suffering and good people are enduring hard times and his mission is to unite the city.
- Later, Bruce’s childhood friend, Rachel Dawes, informs Bruce that a crime lord named Falcony is flooding the streets of Gotham with crime, preying on the desperate. “Falcony may not have killed your parents, Bruce, but he’s destroying everything they stood for.”
- And later Alfred tells Bruce that his father nearly bankrupted their company combatting poverty. Thomas Wayne believed his example could inspire the wealthy and powerful of Gotham to save their city.
Batman isn’t driven by ego or revenge. He‘s driven by a desire to carry on his parent’s legacy. He can only do this by removing corruption from his home city and inspiring the good people to take it back. His ‘why’ is echoed in The Dark Knight when Batman tells The Joker, “This city just showed you it’s full of people ready to believe in good.” Batman believes Gotham is worth saving.
Bruce Wayne’s ‘why’ is his north star, and motivates him to push through the pain and misery that comes with being Batman.
A good entrepreneur has a bigger mission beyond profits that motivates them to carry on through hard times. The north star that guides them to make decisions that are better for the long term goals of the company.
What’s your ‘why’?
3. Don’t wait to launch
While Bruce Wayne understands his big picture goal of saving Gotham, he doesn’t arrive at the idea for Batman in a straight line.
On his way back to Gotham, Bruce tells Alfred,
“People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy, and I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed. But as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting… something elemental, something terrifying.”
Bruce is onto something. He knows he wants to become a symbol, but he doesn’t know what that symbol is quite yet. He knows he wants to strike fear in the hearts of criminals, but he doesn’t quite know how.
Still, none of that stops him from moving forward. He goes back to Gotham and takes over the applied science department at Wayne Enterprises with Lucius Fox. He researches the big players in Gotham, from mob bosses, to cops and judges to figure out who can be trusted. His first time going out he wears a ski mask.
The lesson here is that once you’re onto something you need to ship. It doesn’t matter how ugly or broken it is. You need to get something in people’s hands.
I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are waiting until their SaaS product is perfect before launching, terrified that one bad experience will sink their startup.
Others are aiming to launch in a big way, waiting until they have an email list of tens of thousands, or hoping to get Techcrunched, thinking the launch will make or break their success.
It all stems from fear. People are afraid to launch something imperfect. They’re afraid of competitors copying their ideas.
You need to lose this fear if you want to win. Good products are launched quietly to a handful of people. And when they do they are broken and missing most of the important features. It’s only by taking the first step and releasing something that you can begin to win. You need to then iterate rapidly, bringing us to…
4. Iterate constantly
Eventually Bruce Wayne starts to piece things together to come up with the Batman persona. Inspired by finding a bat in his study, he recalls his childhood phobia of bats.
When Alfred asks him why bats, Bruce responds:
“Bats frighten me. It’s time my enemies share my dread.”
This is just one example of how Bruce adapts his persona gradually over time.
He doesn’t stop there.
At one point, Batman realizes his job entails jumping off ledges, and the landings don’t tickle, so he has Lucius Fox build him a cape that can help soften his fall.
In The Dark Knight he has a run-in with vicious dogs which informs him of his need for better armor along with the ability to turn his head. In comes another request to Lucius.
Batman is constantly finding ways to optimize and improve his performance as he goes out and practices his craft, which is precisely what a good entrepreneur does.
As you put your product or service out there in the world, compile feedback, organize it. Monitor the data. Notice where the biggest problems lie. Look at your marketing funnel and see where the biggest holes are, and work to fix them. Never be satisfied with just okay.
More importantly, keep working on yourself.
5. Trust other people
As I already mentioned, Batman is not driven by ego.
He doesn’t care that only a few people in his life know who he really is underneath the mask. All he cares about is honouring his father’s legacy and saving Gotham city.
As he tells Gordon, “I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.”
Over the three films, Batman enlists the help of numerous allies, including Alfred, Lucius Fox, Commissioner Gordon, and Rachel Dawes. At one point he attempts to hand the reigns of Gotham’s savior over to district attorney, Harvey Dent, stating that Gotham needs a hero with a face.
In the final film, The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Batman receives help from John Blake (aka Robin), a beat cop with an orphan background, and Selina Kyle, a cat burglar with a heart of gold.
At the end of the movie he even leaves the Batcave, the costume and all his gear to Blake, passing the torch for him to become the next Batman.
It’s not about ego, it’s about completing the mission.
In a similar way, good entrepreneurs know that they can’t do it alone forever. They need to build a team.
Conversely, bad entrepreneurs are obsessed with being the smartest person in the room. They don’t care about good ideas that aren’t their own. This approach destroys otherwise good companies. A-Players get frustrated and leave.
Hire good people who share your vision. Trust them. Let them make mistakes. Stay out of their way.
Let them be the hero.
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