Why I love mission-driven entrepreneurs
On February 23rd, I was kicking-off NUMA Paris’ Demo Day, the event during which NUMA accelerated startups present their businesses to the world.
It was a great opportunity for me to talk about our acceleration program, and why I decided to lead it for the past 6 months. A time during which I thought a lot about what being “mission-driven” means. Why it increases so much your odds to be successful, and why it is both so powerful and extremely difficult in the same time.
It essentially boils down to three steps : Solving a problem ; Developing a vision ; Rigorous execution.
We got problems
Today more than ever, it’s become incredibly easy to become a “startup founder”. Purchase a URL, give yourself a cool name (preferable ending in .io) and you’re on your way to being acquired, right? Unfortunately it’s not that easy.
Over the years at NUMA we’ve built a pretty impressive track record, so when it’s time for one of our acceleration programs, it’s no surprise we’re overwhelmed with applications. Among all these applications, the very first thing I look for with my team is the “problem” part. We look for people who are solving real problems, and know why they are doing it.
Yet, far too often I see entrepreneurs making the mistake of solving a problem nobody has. Most of the time, none of the founders have actually experienced the problem themselves. Simply having empathy for a problem and finding an initial audience isn’t enough.
I want to know “why” you’re attacking this problem.
We tend to shy away from “mercenaries” who simply detect an interesting market opportunity (and no, just because it has worked in another market doesn’t mean it will work here) with no deep conviction or passion for the problem they are solving.
For me the true mark, are deeply passionate entrepreneurs, with a sincere reason to embark on the crazy roller coaster ride of start up creation. Season after season, data shows you’ll be way less prone to “founder fatigue” if you have that kind of motivation for solving the problem you tackle.
That’s where mission-driven entrepreneurship starts. From a problem that truly matters to you. Around this problem, a solution gets built. And beyond this initial solution, a vision emerges.
Not just a solution, but a vision. And a mission to get there.
Early-stage entrepreneurs often waste a lot of time elaborating and crafting “perfect solutions” that will end up dramatically changing (or failing). Don’t try to build the perfect product, instead formulate and test your product hypothesis quickly.
Just remember not to “make” these quick experiments your vision!
So what do I mean by vision? Vision, is the capacity to project your solution in the future. How it will affect a category of agents, consumers or businesses. That doesn’t mean describing what your solution looks like. Whatever solution you currently (or plan to) have, it’s very likely to change.
An ambitious and permanent vision. Focusing on impact.
Your vision should find its roots in the impact you want your company to have. It should remain fairly agnostic as to the product you’re currently building. It should feel ambitious, and permanent.
This Vision will be an incredible driver for your startup. It will help you rally people, giving them a purpose they want to achieve by working at your company. For early stage companies, it’s also how you’ll explain your friends and family why you’re taking that risk, why you’re going to work so much, for so little reward initially.
But it won’t lead you much further without proper execution. From this vision, you’ll be able to derive a mission statement, that not only describes the purpose of your organisation, but answers to what it does, who it does it for, and how it does it.
Execution makes all the difference
Without proper execution, your vision you have of the future will never materialize. And that’s where the really hard part is : rigorous, metrics-driven execution that is aligned with your vision. A big chunk of this boils down to thoughtful prioritization, defining the right objectives, how to achieve them, and how to measure success.
“Vision without execution is hallucination” — Thomas Edison.
Adopting a methodology like Objective and Key Results (OKR) at a macro level, and Sprint planning (Scrum) at a micro level, will help tremendously. But one of the most critical part in this process resides in creating and maintaining coherence between your vision and your day-to-day execution.
It is both incredibly powerful and challenging. You’ll inevitably face compromises as you create purpose and alignment in your business. It could be significant changes in your product offering, or even firing existing customers because they put your business on a track that derails you from your company purpose. That’s what I call “bad traction”.
To help our startups with this, and to make sure they get the most out of our acceleration program, we ask them to fill this spreadsheet, before the acceleration program even begins :
It looks like a very simple exercise. But if done thoughtfully, you’ll be surprised how much stress it puts on your execution plan, and on the coherence it has with your vision. Doing it on quarterly basis — and checking progress weekly — will get you a long way.
Building coherence between vision and execution.
Tackling a meaningful problem, with a rigorous execution plan that is aligned with an ambitious vision. That’s the essence of “mission-driven entrepreneurship”, and that’s why I love so much working with that kind of founders. Passionate people who execute smartly and relentlessly on making their dreams come true.
I hope you’ll find this useful for your own business. There is a lot more that could be said on each section : The problem you tackle, the vision you elaborate, and obviously the way you execute on it. If this resonates with you, and if you’re interested in a deep dive on one (or each) of these sections, let me know in your comments !
Thanks to Alieu Terry, François Expert and Olivier Mougenot for reading drafts of this.
