An Executive Summary of the Most Effective Entrepreneur

I’ve had the spirit of an entrepreneur all my life as illustrated in my earlier piece “Entrepreneurial Advice Nobody Gives You “, but it wasn’t until senior year of high school that I started my first business. It started as a simple business with me repairing, modding, customizing the Android devices for customers around my state.

A year prior, I had received my first Android, a Samsung Galaxy Exhibit. A week later, I learned about gaining root access, so I tried it and failed. My phone bricked in the middle of the night, so the next morning, I called T-Mobile, went through the entire hierarchy of their customer service and told their executives that their software update bricked my phone. Three to five business days later, my new Exhibit arrived, I successfully gained root access this time, and a year later people were driving across the state of Pennsylvania to have Urban Root Tech, what I called the company when I brought aboard another hacker, modify their smart phones and tablets.

These customers trusted me with their $600–1200 investments even though I wasn’t offering any insurance. It was a risk I was taking, but it paid off in the form of a couple thousand dollars even if I didn’t operate as effectively as I could have. But what really is effectiveness? Who is this man the media so badly wants you and I to be more like? I’m glad we both asked because I’ve taken the time to sum him up.

Mr. Effective Entrepreneur

Its been about a year since I ventured into the start-up world and I’ve heard so much about Mr. Effective — the most effective entrepreneur known to man. When he enters, the whole room stops and stares. When he speaks, the birds stop chirping to listen. When he smiles, bankers pull out their checks. When he leads, the world follows. Man, he is something else.

His Effective Disposition

Many days, he dresses for the occasion, other days, he is decked out in a tux, and the other days, he touts his Facebook T-Shirt. Legend has it he was a Peter Thiel fellow and he raised funds from the top VC’s in Silicon Valley. However, he didn’t do it too quickly. He waited for just the right moment. He gathered all the users he could, wrote his business plan, planned his exit plan, mastered the art of content marketing, and prepared the perfect pitch. The order of those last events may be tough to piece together for you and I, but for Mr. Effective, its down to a science. He is really out of this world.

His Effective Pitch

Mr. effective steps on the elevator as the VC’s await. He makes the pitch as they elevate. Not a beat was missed, not a hiccup. He speaks fluently of customers, partners, growth, market evaluation, and all the other essentials lost in the noise. He nails it and closes the series A round before the elevator doors open. He makes the call to his team and tells them its time to make the push. Its time to scale like they’ve never scaled before. Call all the partners and tell them to double, no triple efficiency. He celebrates his little success, but doesn’t let it get too far into his head. Oh, Mr. Effective Entrepreneur, go on with your ways.

His Effective Leadership

His team awaits his next move, and they know he trusts their judgement. He’s built just the perfect team and instilled in them the utmost freedom to innovate. Too each holds his/her own specialty, and as so they are fluid. They are on to something and Mr. Effective has won them the capital to make it happen. Innovation, here they come.

Its 2:00 in the morning and the phone rings and none other than Mr. Effective picks up. The leading VC has elected to pull out of the funding round. What does Mr. Effective Entrepreneur do? The only thing he knows how. He shows the VC appreciation for his time, hangs up, and makes the call to his board of of advisers. They assure him everything would be fine, as if he didn’t know that already. He lays his head down to sleep by his love.

His Effective Work/Life Emotions

The next morning, he doesn’t neglect the other half of his work/life relationship. He takes some time to appreciate his family and calls some friends. He retreats to his office and cries a bit in solitude where nobody can see. He keeps the emotions behind closed doors so nobody can see all the pain. This way, the world can go on glamorizing the entrepreneurial life. His decision to keep the extreme emotions off the surface keeps his team in tact, but when its time to lead his team to the promised land, his passion pours out. He waves a sword and threatens to chop the heads of anybody who messes with his company, calls up the competition and tells them to join him because they have nothing going for them, and he even throws small parties at the end of each week to celebrate the growth of his company. His team is doing well and sure enough replaces the VC who dropped at 2:00 mornings before. Its time to reevaluate himself.

His Effective Self

Mr. Effective knows why he is doing this. He knows for who he is doing it. His motivations are right and the reward looks bright. But for a moment he forgets himself. That’s okay, even the most effective entrepreneur has the slightest hiccup. Mr. Effective reflects to a time when he was in need with no solution in sight. He remembers Googling for solutions to his problem and coming up with nothing. He even recalls the coffee lunch he had with that old buddy of his. It was that day that he wrote his solution on the back of a half used napkin only to revisit it months later. He remembers not being sure if he was the right person to solve the problem he and so many others were having, but then he looked online. He read all the articles on what it takes to be an entrepreneur, how to go about starting a business in just four hours, even how to find the best team. He read countless articles about venture capitalists, investors, mentors, incubators, start-up competitions, and everything having to do with nurturing the best entrepreneurial spirit in oneself. It was then that he made the checklist that lead him to where he is now. But still nobody knows who he is. Mr. Effective is finally out of answers…

His Effective Nonexistence

Mr. Effective is so effective, he is of another species of entrepreneurs. He may not even exist… But on the journalists write of him in all his glory. In my first year in the start-up round, I’ve come across a collection of articles claiming to know what it takes to be the perfect entrepreneur. They all say to do x,y, and z and you’ll succeed. They all say that if you do t, u, v, you’ll fail out of the gate.

Be the Most Effective You

There has come the point where I either keep scrolling past or I take a minute to read the first sentence of such articles. They are all the same. They all paint a glamorous picture of Mr. Effective up to the point right before he runs out of answers.

There is no Mr. Effective, but there’s you. You need to stop reading those phony articles and start making the right decisions for you and your team. Sometimes what you think may be right may very well be the absolute worst decision you ever make, and that’s fine. The best entrepreneurs are the ones who innovate, may be not reinvent the wheel, but they try something new. They take risks and they lead the best way they know how. Yes, they read books, not short eye catching headlines. Lastly, they never stop finding solutions to real problems of real people.