The Genuine Entrepreneur
Investing in genuine people
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have invested in and work with some amazing entrepreneurs and startups in the past two years. I admire people who push industry and society forward.
As investors, we talk about “pattern recognition”, which basically means recognizing over time what are the common traits that make for a successful founder and startup. For me personally, the one factor that I believe is shared in most breakthrough founders and companies is that they are all incredibly genuine about solving a particular problem that they’ve created their company around.
I mean that the founder(s) have come to founded their company based on deep, long-term, personal life experiences focusing on solving problems they care about more than anything else. They are deeply genuine in their belief and action in tackling a challenge that they feel is one of, if not, the most important problems in the world.
While this sounds exceedingly obvious, in the modern day hoopla of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley and globally, it’s easy to lose sight of this quality. It’s become increasingly easy and hip to start a company that might make some money. There is no shortage of short-term opportunism in the modern day startup gold rush.
To me, the first warning sign, the “run away as fast as possible” trigger is when someone starts the first meeting promising to make a ton of money before talking about the problem, the product and team in great detail. It’s particularly scary if that huge definitely money-making idea is the latest fashionable technology thing that they just happened upon.
The genuine entrepreneur is not particularly interested in the trendy technology gold rush. They have deeper motivations. Here’s a brief and very non-exhaustive list of genuine entrepreneurs to illustrate the point:
Steve Jobs— both before, but especially after Steve’s passing, people tried to copy his clothing, his glasses. It was just some of the most ridiculous things. Trying to replicate his appearance misses the point. It was Steve Jobs’ software that made him who he was.
Since an early age, Jobs was tinkering with consumer electronics products with his dad and then later with teenage friend Steve Wozniak. Even by Steve’s own admission, Apple would not have existed without his first foray into building products like the blue box. Later, Jony Ive would recount how he and Jobs would spend months working on a part of a product that customers would never see.
He wasn’t driven by money, power, fame. He was simply driven by the intrinsic motivation of building a product that people loved. As he said himself, Apple was built from the heart.
If you want to copy anything about Steve, just copy the fact that he was genuine and honest with himself.
Elon Musk — in college, Elon thought that the three most important things for the future of humanity were the Internet, space exploration and sustainability.
Despite his very public responsibilities leading two companies — SpaceX and Tesla, he is a known introvert and cares more about solving engineering problems than basking in his success.
Logan Green & John Zimmer— when we first met Logan and John on a Sunday afternoon when they were pitching Lyft to us (yes, we all were working on Sunday☺), you could tell that they were building Lyft from the heart.
Logan had been traveling in Zimbabwe when he saw people sharing cars informally as many people did not own their own cars. He understood how this practice was building a closer community and at the same time reducing the number of cars on the road. John learned and studied the importance of transportation in his favorite college class, the class that left the strongest impression on him. He came to share his professor’s belief that solving transportation when there’s 8-9 billion people on earth was the most important aspect of human society going forward.
The entire Lyft experience, from the fist bump, to the snacks offered, to the personal conversations, to sitting in the front seat is built around cultivating a passionate and genuine community. Having ridden a few dozen Lyfts, I can personally attest to the positive energy in this community.
Full disclosure, we are an investor in Lyft.
Ramona Pierson— not only does Ramona have an out-of-this-world personal story, she is also determined and genuine about creating a new chapter in intelligent learning and data analysis via her company Declara, which she co-founded with Nelson Gonzalez and Debra Chrapaty.
In her early twenties, Ramona worked on algorithms and data analytics for the Marines before getting hit by a drunk driver that nearly (or basically) killed her. She persevered and came back in a way that most people can’t imagine.
If you’ve ever met Ramona, you’ll know that she not only has no self-pity for the terrible things that have happened to her, she also has no pretense despite a successful track record and an incredible life since then. Honestly, she just wants to build Declara and solve problems for organizations looking to education their workforce. Much of everything else, including media attention, is largely secondary to her.
You can see that genuine culture throughout the company. Everyone who works there comes from their own impressive background, yet there is no ego, just a quiet determination to do great work for customers.
Full disclosure, we are an investor in Declara.
You should pursue a startup if you genuinely care about solving the problem and don’t care about the hoopla and hype surrounding doing a startup, of which there is a lot of these days in Silicon Valley and globally.
Building a truly great company takes a lot of staying power and a long time. Investing in people who are trying to take advantage of short term financial opportunities can result in failure or worst — lawsuits or damaged reputation. I’ll do myself a favor and keep looking for founders who are determined, passionate and genuine about solving a major problem in the world.
