There Is No Formula (You Can’t Build Someone Else’s Startup)

At Promus Ventures, one of our favorite questions we ask founders is not “What are you building?” but “Why are you building?”

As the saying goes, it all starts at the beginning. If your eyes don’t light up and your body leans in when asked why you are building what you are building, then it will be a tough road to success. Personally, I have seen this prove true throughout my life.

We have had the privilege of backing now more than 40 starting teams. Our data shows that the best founders build out of a passion deep inside that trumps any formulaic set of today’s investing variables (traction, MRR, margins, insert 20 others).

Ask yourself (right now!) this question:

Why are you doing what you are doing?

Here are some other questions that help answer this “why”:

How did you spend your time as a kid?

What makes you angry?

Where do you lose all perspective of time in your life today?

Describe the hardest season of your life — what did you learn?

Sometimes (many times) these are not easy questions to answer. We’re not psychologists but if we’re going to get on a long bus ride with a team, we care deeply about knowing what motivates and drives founders to get up each and every morning to build something from nothing. The sexiness of startupland loses its luster quickly once things go south and get very hard (and trust me they do go south…all the time…).

Working at a startup isn’t about owning the shallow title of Founder, Entrepreneur or Owner. Building a company should be based on the cornerstone of who you are, and if so, your odds of succeeding will be high.