“Ideal Founders”
— their Why and How
A poignant moment with a CEO in our portfolio this week reminded me of a pivotal conversation I had almost twenty years ago. I was telling a mentor of mine about a company I was creating, and I described it in terms of “the beauty I most wanted to see more of in the world.” Without hesitation he nodded emphatically “yes and what I want to know is how beautifully you’ll go about creating it!”
The founders I’ve been most inspired by tend to come less from a sense of lack and more from a sense of possibility. Even as they clarify the exact problems they’re committed to solving, their vision often has a non-reactive tone of appreciation for the world as it is, along with conviction for how they’ll make it even better. I think Ram Dass was the first teacher I heard pointing at this particular way of leading when he said, “yes the world is perfect, including my desire to change it”.
So at the essence of entrepreneurship, I look for founders lit up about what beauty they’re set on creating out there, but they won’t be flying with only that one wing. The best founders must also continually discover, and re-discover, how to beautifully bring that creation about over the years. So many times in my life the ends have justified the means, I’ve been so deeply moved by a mission yet ultimately resorted to the ugliest means to get there. In fact the more inspired I’ve been the more grim I’ve been willing to go! Ironically, even now as I’m writing these words to you I’m continually catching myself typing resentfully, as if to just get this over with…yet my actual experience of having a thought and bringing it to life on the page, and even the simple soft clicking of the keys beneath my fingers, might just as easily become a graceful process of bringing my work to fruition. I almost always like my final product more when I’ve created it this way, and it always leaves me more eager to take on the next project.
As your startup goes through its many many ups and downs, you may absolutely need to take the time to reconnect to what was beautiful enough to justify embarking on such a risky adventure. Just as importantly, though, take frequent pit stops to assess the ways you can bring that very beauty into your work today. I hope to see this combination leading you and your co-conspirators to burning out less as you continually outperform your previous best, time and time again.
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in seed-stage companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation and computing
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