The Mechanics of Mafia: Why You Should Run Your Startup Like a Cult.
Asking you to run your startup like a Cult might seem a bit sinister, but it’s absolutely how the best startups are founded. Your entrepreneurial exploits are a conspiracy against what currently exists and must be seen as an in house secret which you work together to bring to life.
If you follow me on any of my social media accounts, you’ll know that i’m a big fan of legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel. His book Zero to One written with Blake Masters, is my favourite of all time simply because he writes as someone who knows exactly what he’s talking about. What I mean is he’s not one of those trying to teach you how to build successful companies without one, he’s been able to build two companies worth over a billion dollars, PayPal & Palantir.
Thiel was in charge of building a team which is now referred to as the legendary PayPal Mafia. These guys were definitely no evil bunch, they were simply able to identify a solution to a big problem (payments on Ebay) which they realised could one day become digital currency. Building this team meant attracting like minds under an umbrella of secrecy and giving them a good reason to feel like a family working on something they could be proud of as co-founders and work on part/full time.
In the image above you begin to see that the co-founders of PayPal weren’t just your ordinary bunch. They were highly intelligent individuals from different walks of life, conspiring to build something the world needed. Look at the companies above, From YouTube to LinkedIn to SpaceX to Tesla to Square. These companies are all worth over a billion dollars.
So how exactly do you attract the sort of minds that enable you to run your startup like a cult?
Here are the Mafia Mechanics:
- Don’t Create Crap: As Steve Jobs once said to Mark Parker — then CEO of Nike, after the latter asked for some advice
“Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. Absolutely beautiful, stunning products. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.” — Steve Jobs
That was typical blunt and straight to the point Steve, and its advice I hold close. Don’t ever create uninspiring products, services, experiences or content; try your best to look for a way that makes what you create gold. True, you might not be able to create at the level you want due to constraints like financial resources but it should always inspire whoever hears about the vision to want to be a part of it.
2. Let Everyone Handle One Thing: A lot of startup founders bring a couple of people together first and then start to assign roles. The issue with this hiring method is that it allows some people to be a part of something without actually doing anything. It’s well documented that in the early days of a startup well rounded individuals capable of hacking different things should be brought in, but I have learnt that you should only bring someone in when a need for their role arises. So when something goes wrong, you know who was meant to handle it, and who is meant to fix it and also so you can remain committed to bringing in the very best to handle each issue.
3. Learn To Bribe: Bribery might seem corrupt, but we’re talking about a cult here and what I mean is proper incentives. About a month ago, I was privileged to attend a talk at Ventures Platform Abuja, with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji co-founder of Flutterwave. An important lesson I learnt from his talk, was when someone asked a question about how non-technical founders of companies can attract developers to build ideas that believe will be great products; when they don’t have enough money to pay these devs.
Iyin’s answer was about learning to offer the sort of equity that what would entice the developers to join, in other words bribe with the right incentives. He even spoke of percentages as high as 70% equity. A lot of founders would consider that crazy, but it actually is the only bargaining tool you have and you must learn to bribe the best in order to attract them.
4. You Should Be Family: Getting the right people to join your startup, might sometimes mean you work with someone you don’t necessarily like but have to put up with to get the job done. Honestly, that should never be the case with a startup. You should be guys, good friends with disagreements every now and then but good friends none the less. Nigerians reading this know how deep the bond is with cultists, appaz they even do deep stuff like drinking each others blood, and i’m not asking you to drink anyone’s blood oh, but y’all should be very good friends and loyal to the cause.
5. Understand Your Startup’s Purpose: In his book Good To Great, Jim Collins discusses the hedgehog concept, using the story of why the fox never catches the hedgehog. He says the fox can do many things he feels will catch the hedgehog, but all the hedgehog has to do is roll up. Similarly, Peter Thiel in his book Zero to One, talks about contrarian truths. Which is what the startup believes is true that other people in the world don’t, this translates to what idea is no one else building? If you understand your Startup’s purpose and communicate this properly to the people you build with, the loyalty and bond deepens.
Now, once again I’d like to reiterate that by Cult I refer to the loyalty involved and definitely not the evil involved. Feel free to replace the word Cult with Family (I just dey yarn this one in case mumsi dey read, but you get me).
Delz Erinle is a freelance UX designer, photographer and avid reader/writer in love with creativity & innovation. You can see his work on wolfdigital.co or Follow him on Instagram & Twitter “wolfofnewstreet.”
