Foundership — a state of mind
Only founders can create new founders
I am a founder. The founder of Funderbeam. To found has been one of the craziest things I have ever done in my life. It takes a lot of courage to take the first step and even more to survive the hardships. To take the responsibility and just make things happen. What I am absolutely certain about, is that to be a “founder” is a state of mind. Combined with the right set of skills, this mindset is essential for success.
Can we ever truly learn how to be a good founder? I mean there are things we do learn at school — languages, maths, accounting, law, economics. All the basics that help us to be successful at our jobs or that at least make us a bit smarter. But being a founder?
When I checked the term foundership, the dictionaries gave me this: a condition of having founded something. So, that could be a community, a sports club, a company or a school fair. To found means to have a vision and to take that vision and make it reality. After plenty of thinking and after taking the first steps, it takes a lot of will power and a pinch of crazy, to survive as a start-up.
But, can we ever learn this? Yes, we can. From other founders.
A founders’ mentality develops in the early years. So, the first thing we need to make sure is that next generation knows that everything is possible. That everyone can be a founder, no matter the age, gender, religion, or where a person is coming from. If every successful founder would mentor one new founder — that could make all the difference!
Once again this year, I attended Latitude59, the biggest Estonian tech conference. Together with VIVITA and Eesti2.0, they introduced a special area for kids and youngsters. The space was a full success, and by far the most crowded area of the entire conference.
To support their ideas, I had a talk about foundership and the next generation of founders. The best way to do that was to bring my 11-year-old son on stage. This is what we came up with:
Obviously, I am super proud of an Estonian boy speaking in front of an international tech audience in English — but this is exactly what I as a founder can and should do. To give encouragement to the next generation of founders.
When I came down the stage, a wonderful Latvian designer, Arta Citko, came up to me. She is creating playbooks and asked me if we could create her next playbook together. About foundership and what it requires to be a good founder. I agreed immediately and here is the result:
You can find the book on Arta’s website.
“I saw Kaidi’s inspiring speech at Latitude59 in Tallinn, Estonia on May 25th. And I immediately saw how her speech can be turned into a playbook. The structure was just perfect for it. And it had clear chapters — the topics she mentioned — the vision, the mindset, the team and so on. And the energy she shared it with, moved me. It was clear that she had something bigger to share with the world and I had an idea how to do it with a playbook! After the speech, I approached her, showed my playbooks and offered to collaborate, to make a playbook based on her speech, and she was immediately in! Now, one and a half months later, we have a playbook with exercises that teach what it takes to be a founder. My hope is that with this playbook we’re inspiring lots of young people to set up their own initiatives, practice founding and building things and teams.”
Funderbeam is now working on translating the playbook in all the languages our team speaks and on how to share the playbook with schools, programs and accelerators for kids and youngsters. We have done our first contribution for the generation of next founders. Beat us — founder :)
