Founders. Don’t chase success too soon, too seriously.

If you still want to, please avoid these pitfalls.

I should start by saying that this is not a prescription to better entrepreneurship nor I have experienced being one. There are a lot of smart, sensible and successful people that I’m not pointing to here. This is just a humble opinion from an emotional designer working with amazing entrepreneurs in this fast paced world of billionaires.

I wished myself to be more right brained, honestly! That would’ve given me the leverage of time to ping-pong, delicious perks or glamorous salaries to proudly contribute on Glassdoor - apart from obviously being celebrated for engineering feats. Me being born in India, at least my father-in-law could be visibly happier introducing me as a “Software Engineer working in a MNC” with a proud grin on his face than trying to explain what I’m doing as a designer (No-no-no, he doesn’t do interiors).

The flip side of what you get being a designer, is work closely with important people in the company, more so often. Being a designer, at any stage in the career you are always running against time. Suddenly you see yourself working with CEO’s. It’s not a flaunt as it sounds, a more unrealized transition - which is worth another story in Medium.

Being so close to entrepreneurs, you learn the Do’s and Don’ts obviously - but interestingly enough you get to know more about the person. You get connected with them in a karmic way - to their vision and aspirations. Your inner spirits would some point in time be calling yourself to be more involved, to be an enabler, to be that change agent, to be a creator that the entrepreneur desperately needs right now! This emotional quotient according to me is seeded by the very founders you’re working with. They know an emotional designer with user empathy can do wonders to the product.

This is what entrepreneurs are extremely good at right? - Selling the vision and making you feel that you are changing the world, well sort of. So, while the team works hard on realizing the vision, there is already a secret “Pivot” idea frothing up slowly. Most often than not, being a designer from then on is a terrible dream you want to end soon.

But, why do the “keepers” of the vision change minds too soon. From my learnings, success is a significant influencer here.

- By peer pressure of so many successful entrepreneurs around.

- By the barrage of Techcrunch/Mashable articles about startups securing millions of investments.

- By success stories/books read for inspiration.

Founders get way more emotional to success. Check!

It is fair working hard to be successful, you may say. Everybody wants to be a success soon, in a time of accidental billionaires. Which is perfectly fine, but here are some pitfalls to be mindful while chasing it.

1. The temptation to be directly involved in product building.

Your feel for success will motivate into building a product you are proud of, one you are confident to sell, to build it your way. You’re certainly smart enough to make a product and there is always pride in handcrafting. But, that is exactly why you brought together a wonderful team and founders have to internalize this.

Founders must shift from creators to enablers for the team to create that product - whatever way they choose to. Importantly, enable them to create a product that beams a coherent vision.

2. Imitation as opposed to Individuality.

“Lets follow a successful model. Do not experiment too much, we may get acquired or get some million dollar investment.” Seems like a compelling formula to success isn’t it? Yeah if it is that easy, why aren’t many rock star startups around?

I just can’t get over the fact that being the smart and sensible lot of people, why entrepreneurs choose to copy than create. If you have an original idea, you must go for it! Follow your intuition, because it is more likely to at least make some heads turn. Imitating a business model is still fine - if you are good enough to take your share of the pie, you deserve it. But it is critical to at least approach it creatively. You might find a road totally not taken and still reach the same place.

3. Pitching in to “help” when not required.

You might want to just pitch in and help a team member solve a problem. You feel helping hand here could speed up things a bit. This is so counter-productive!

People need time and freedom to come up with elegant solutions to complex problems. Not necessarily does that mean they are struggling. This so happens with developers. Your offer to help maybe is humbling for you but often interpreted as doubt in abilities of that person. Also it runs the risk of lacking context, being perceived as shortsightedness and even end up lowering team’s confidence in you sometimes. That said, people always listen to constructive feedbacks. Frame the problem and let people solve it. Guide them throughout - objectively. And help only when asked to.

4. Changing your mind is not always a sign of intelligence.

Time and again, founders successfully imbibe the more often iterated version of the same vision proudly calling it a non-conspired realignment of strategy towards success.

Most of the times things don’t go as planned in the startup world. It is natural that people will say - I’m not the user for it. It is also quite natural to get carried away by the comments and contemplate a change in direction already. But trust your instincts here. Did you show it to the right audience? Or is it the uncle’s/aunt’s (there is nothing wrong unless they are the target group), friends and family. Mostly, they will say its cool, because they don’t want to disappoint you. This will hurt you a long way. Doing a concept validation with these group of people is more often than not, a setup for failure. Believe me, you are better off showing it to a stranger in a cafe!

Network with the right people and form a very small focus group who are early adopters and are super interested in contributing to your product. Measure feedback objectively, redesign and test. Thank them. Move on.

5. Saying things that your team need not hear.

At the end of the day, the words that you utter as a founder are far louder than you think. Because you aren’t involved in hands-on work, it is quite tempting to give honest feedbacks, tweak the workflow, give some inputs for design of the button, saying which API to use etc. Resist!

Also, you might even get excited with an idea you had last night and go too far in defending it. While, it maybe a really powerful one, sometimes the team is sprinting too hard and are not so receptive to new ideas at that moment. Because it simply disrupts the plans of the team. Instead you can choose to have a brainstorming session and take it from there. Detaching emotions from ideas and saying what you want the team to exactly hear is very important in keeping the team focused, motivated and responsible.

6. Last but no least, paint the right picture.

Some founders go too far in giving early promises. While this maybe an attempt to motivate the team temporarily, it is a total drainer when things dont go as expected. It is extremely important to set the expectations right upfront, do not aim too high and let the team come to terms with reality than a hyped future. Growing a startup culture and having a motivated team responding to the founder is far better approach to success than the manipulative strategies.

My humble request is to stay smart, sensible and awesome person you are rather than trying hard to be a successful bozo. Chase your dreams and not success. Take it lightly if it doesn’t go well. You will be just fine!