Entrepreneurship with sense — Chapter 1/3: the Why
Chapter 1/3 of a series around why, how and when to become an entrepreneur. Summary of my talks at Clavis Association’s 3rd annual meeting and at ThePowerBrunch by ThePowerMBA
More and more, it looks like, if you are not co-founder or C-level in a startup, you didn’t achieve anything important as a professional. Yes, entrepreneurship could potentially make you have a great impact in this world (i.e. by solving a big problem more efficiently or creating many jobs), but you don’t need to become an entrepreneur to be successful. Moreover, the tech and startup world works in an extremely “Pareto” way: the 1% of most successful will generate more impact than the remaining 99%, so there are little chances you can create a big impact.
Actually, your chances of being successful in your professional career and having an impact are higher if you work for someone else, as +90% of startups fail. Having a great career elsewhere will give you the structure (from a financial, HR, or technology perspective) to create projects, solve problems and bring ideas to life in a much more efficient and effective way.
Therefore, there is clearly a lot of hype around becoming an entrepreneur these days. I myself have been part of the “entrepreneurship hype” and have created ventures which I probably shouldn’t have. This is why, in this series, I wanted to share my opinion of why, how and when you should become an entrepreneur (I leave the “what” up to you— otherwise I would be creating your startup myself). I will be also sharing my personal experience as introduction to each question as an example.
In this first chapter, I will focus on the reasons why you should become an entrepreneur — and the reasons why you should not.
Chapter 1/3: The Why — my experience
I have launched 3 startups up to date, but I have only been successful in one of them (partially at least — Nova has still to grow and improve a lot). I believe the fundamental reason behind me creating those startups was different — the why — and that is precisely what has made the difference.
1- Daskit.com
My first startup was an ed-tech startup which I launched together with several university friends when I was back at Ecole Centrale, in Paris. The problem we were trying to solve was the low level of interaction in big classes at French university, where rooms of 300+ students made interaction very difficult and people had a hard time paying attention and asking questions.
Our idea was to create a webApp to make those classes more engaging and useful, for instance letting you tell the teacher when you were “lost” or enabling simple quizzes and tests to be introduced.
The reason why I joined this project was that I was frustrated with the way those classes were given, as I learned very little from them compared to the ones I had back at ICAI (or the ones I have had later at Columbia). We had a good idea, a big market potential, a great team and we managed to close our first paying client without even having a company. It looks like the “timing” for the idea was right, as every student started to have smartphones in France back then and teachers were hungry for new solutions in the classroom.
Nevertheless, the reality is that my “why” for this startup was weak, as I only spent 2 years in France, I didn’t give any classes as a teacher and I was not particularly interested in pedagogy, which made me grow less and less engaged with the project to the point I sold my shares to one of the co-founders. Him, being French, teacher and passionate about pedagogy, kept working hard on the project, which is alive still today and with an amazing potential. I was simply not the right person.
2- TagToShop
I hate lines at brick-and-mortar stores, particularly at clothing ones. I believe everybody does. Why can you go around the store seeing and trying clothes, but you need to wait in the line to pay? It is really nonsense.
That is why, when I was at Columbia, together with 2 friends we tried to create a retail startup which, through RFID and an mobile application (we actually used a chatbot on Facebook Messenger), would enable you to check-out without waiting in the line.
Again, the idea was amazing, the market potential was huge and the team was even better (we had a kick-ass CTO, an amazing MBA student as CEO and myself working with the product as an engineer). We won several Columbia prizes and even received a 50.000$ grant (free money, no equity required) from an accelerator to develop the idea further, but we didn’t dare to risk our careers (mine at BCG) for this project. Why?
In the end, it boils down to the fact that, although we were “users” of our product, we weren’t passionate about retail. We did not have a big “why”. Yeah, I hate waiting in lines, but I go shopping once or twice a year, and rely on Amazon for the rest. My co-founders were very similar in that sense. Nobody in the team was an actually shopper, passionate about retail or in-store experience. We were not the right people — we just saw a problem with a big market potential and decided to solve it in a rational way, but we were not passionate about it. That is why we didn’t pursue an idea which was perfectly timed to market (check for instance how Mishipay, which started more or less at the same time we did, is doing, or see the supermarket Amazon is building).
3- Nova Talent
My third and final startup up to date, and the one where I keep working tirelessly is Nova Talent. Nova Talent is the global top-talent community that connects high potential individuals with the best professional opportunities. We create these connections through in-person events and through our online platform, which we call Nova Connect, using data and algorithms to make the connections relevant for members and partner companies. The key which distinguishes our community is the quality of our members, who need to go through our selection process to be accepted. Our goal is to ensure that all our members belong to the top 1% of their field of expertise.
Again, I am a user of the product. I have gone myself through the selection process and I love the value proposal:
- having access to an amazing and diverse network of top-talented people
- learning and developing myself from the events, programs and content on the platform
- having access to curated career opportunities, more relevant to me than the ones I find on LinekdIn or other massive platforms
However, the key difference here, is that I have a bigger “why” to be here. Of course I think Nova has a huge potential to become better than traditional headhunters and hopefully we will become the reference way for talented individuals to find their jobs. But I didn’t join the company to become the best headhunter. The main reason I work here is that I fundamentally believe in meritocracy and I think Nova can help making society more meritocratic. By enabling the most talented individuals, and not just those from privileged socio-economic backgrounds, access the best career opportunities, I believe Nova can have a great social impact, and that is my biggest reason to be here.
The world’s talent is decentralized, but opportunities are centralized. For instance, there is no statistical reason why people born in Madrid in a wealthy family and going to a private university are more talented than people born in Granada in a middle income family which can only afford a local public university. An average student from the private university in Madrid (i.e. ICADE) and the wealthy family will probably know he/she should do internships, participate in volunteering activities, go abroad to improve his/her English or learn which are the best companies to apply in order to land a great job after university. However, an average student in Granada, with the same or more “raw talent”, will have less information of what to do or where to apply to land a great job so his/her chances of starting a great career are much fewer.
there is no statistical reason why people born in Madrid in a wealthy family and going to a private university are more talented than people born in Granada in a middle income family which can only afford a local public university.
As careers are like snowballs, 10 years down the road, the student from the private university will be earning 2 or 3 times more, will have more relevant experience and will actually be a more valuable professional in the market, even if he/she had similar or lower “raw talent”. Imagine the potential of this same example if you do not limit yourself to a rather socially advanced country like Spain, and you compared for instance the opportunities you have coming from Europe vs. coming from Africa.
This is why I keep working on this company 3+ years after, why I have left BCG for it and why I wake up every morning with enough energy to keep pushing. The main reason why I am having (at least more) success with Nova is because I have a big WHY to be here.
I can’t find a better explanation than the one I just offered to why Nova is succeeding and the others did not. The market is more complex, I have had more trouble finding financing, I have made more mistakes (I will tell you more about this in the 2nd chapter), and it has taken me more time to have sales and find the right business model than in the 2 other startups.
Moreover, this time I believe that I am also the right person (as I have had some HR experience before and I am fortunate to have been surrounded by many Nova-like people who I can bring on-board). Furthermore, it is the right timing (as LinkedIn has removed the extra value proposal which headhunters had before through their proprietary databases) and market signals that both candidates and companies are not happy with the current headhunting experience. This combination of being the right person + having the right timing + having a big WHY is the reason behind our current growth.
Nevertheless, as we will see in the next chapters, this why is a necessary, though not sufficient condition to be successful as an entrepreneur.
Summary of key learnings for you
The WHY: you need 3 things to maximize your chances of being a successful entrepreneur:
- To be the right person (i.e. have relevant experience or skills which give you an edge for this particular venture)
- To have the right time to market (i.e. there has to be a technological or market reason why your idea can succeed now)
- But more importantly, you need to have a big reason to launch your startup. Being a user of your product or service, wanting to make money or just willingness to become an entrepreneur will not be enough to enable you to go through the startup rollercoaster. You need to be passionate about the problem you solve and believe you are making some kind of impact.
The HOW… (more to come in the 2nd chapter)
The WHEN… (more to come in the 3rd chapter)
