THE THOUGHT PROCESS OF SUCCESSFUL FOUNDERS AND STARTUP ENTREPRENEURS

THE BEST FOUNDER I HAVE EVER WORKED WITH DOESN’T CODE

I write this post not from a position of altruism, but from a position of frustration. I have written before about the worthless drivel out there that claims to give readers the “secret sauce” behind what it takes to be a successful startup entrepreneur. This is to be expected from semi-reputable rags.

But over the last month, my Medium feed has been filled with this stuff as well — this time from founders themselves. Some are better than others, but for the most part they are all derivative fluff pieces that offer no insights beyond the clichés.

I work with a lot of founders from every possible background and in almost every industry. They are all great, but one specifically stands out. Below is a (brief) story about that founder, and what makes him great. My hope is to offer more tangible insights as to the thought process of exceptional founders, not character traits, and as juxtaposition to the endless stream of pointless articles on the same subject.

The best founder I have ever worked with doesn’t know how to code anything. If you ask him in what language his products were written, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. The best founder I have ever worked with is a lawyer by trade, with a background in legal mediation for child and family services — yet his first successful startup was in agro-tech, his second was in materials, and his current project is in med tech.

So how can someone without any technical background and no relevant industry experience be continuously successful?

CURIOSITY — OBSERVATION — SKEPTICISM.

This founder came up with his idea from a conversation with his doctor at a routine checkup. The doctor was mentioning some of the hassles around maintaining medical licenses.

This piqued the curiosity of the founder, who immediately thought to himself: I should look in to this to see if there is something bigger going on.

This seems like a trite example, but few people have this innate ability to recognize opportunities. Even fewer will make the effort to explore the opportunity. And a subset of those people will approach the issue with a dose of skepticism, to see if it is widespread in other areas, or unique to one person.

KNOWING WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

So the founder started reading up on the topic, beginning at the highest level, and quickly realized that the niche he was looking at was much more nuanced than expected — regulatory issues, market dynamics, lots of existing differentiated competitors, technological considerations, trends, etc…

The key here, for any founder, is recognizing the limitation of your ability, and isolating what aspects you need to strengthen in order to get a full understanding of the potential.

NETWORKING AND OUTREACH

Once the founder had a firm grasp of what was missing from his knowledge base, he sought out experts in various fields to fill in the gaps. He only had a cursory understanding of the technical aspects needed to build his vision, so went on a man-hunt to find the expert who could deepen his understanding. He had a vague sense of the marketplace and the competitors for his product, so he sought out a consultant (me) to help him understand the “white space” that existed and articulate the best use case for his vision to the best possible potential customers. He met with more doctors and experts to hone in on the product offering. All of these people slowly fell in love with the idea, and quickly came on board in their various capacities and roles; as CTO, as board members, as advisers.

By the end of the process, he had enough firepower behind him, a co-founder,and a small circle of trusted advisers, where he could begin development.

FOCUS ON PROCESS

All throughout, the founder never used the catch-all startup words like “problem” and “solution” that appear in every pitch deck. Instead, his mindset was always focused on the process. He wanted to improve the process by which his target customer/users perform a specific task.

The focus on process is not applicable for every type of startup — like a patent driven biotech innovation — but for many it is. Depicting a startup’s product as a “solution” to a “problem” implies that there is a need for the product. In reality, the vast bulk of products out there are not “need to have” but “nice to have”. For example, Uber for dog walkers is not a need (sorry Benchmark), and neither is tracking your friends every second of the day. It is a nice to have if you are in to it.

UTILITY MAXIMIZATION.

Because the founder focused on the process, any improvements in the process will increase utility by definition. You can define utility however you like, but it is always about increasing satisfaction for potential users/customers.

I have written about this concept before, and I can’t stress it enough. This founder will win customers/users because he will make the good aspects of his specific process better, and the bad aspects of his specific process less painful.

VALUE GAP

After the founder spent a few months building the best possible use case for his technology, he was able to articulate his offer in a concise “value gap”. This can be defined: What are your competitors NOT doing to address FUTURE market trends and customer demands. And here we define competitors as the existing next best alternative to the specific process. (Special note: founders who say “we have no competition” have a flawed understanding of the market they want to get in to).

Great founders, and I have been fortunate enough to work with a few, not only have the necessary character traits that are reiterated in every fluff piece, but also have a distinct thought process. It is this thought process that gave this founder a leg up, setting him up for future success, maximizing his chances, and attracting top talent to his immediate team.

If there are any seed stage investors out there with an interest in med-tech who would like to meet this founder and his stellar team, ping me.