horsepigcow

For anyone who has been following me, you know that I’ve transitioned in 2010 from being author/speaker/marketing consultant to a startup co-founder. I’ve worked for/with over 30 startups over the years, including Like.com (when it was Riya.com), Slideshare, TripIt, Scrapblog and Ma.gnolia.com (still think it was the best social bookmarking site ever). But working for/with a startup is VERY different than launching one yourself. It’s the same difference as riding in a car vs. driving it. Taking the wheel is a whole level of learning and attention.

So I went from delving out all sorts of wisdom (as a consultant and author) to seeing if I can eat my own dogfood on that wisdom. So far, so good…plus several books worth of lessons learnt on top! I’ve been thinking about one part I’ve preached about for a while now…the importance of company culture. When it was just us three co-founders, it didn’t seem urgent, but I realized as soon as it came to laying down the foundation for growing our team a couple of months back, company culture became crucial. Unfortunately, we were busy and scaling fast, so I put it to the side. Not a great idea. The lack of culture meant we acted haphazardly, full of ideas and little coalescence. I’m pretty sure we appeared a bit schizophrenic at times.

But as soon as we pushed through development pushes, I called the founding team together and proposed a set of cultural values that I believed in. And guess what? They did, too. 100% agreement with only one addition. This was an awesomely re-affirming exercise.

So what are they? I’ll let you see for yourself in our {first draft} Shwowp Culture document:

It seemed to me as I browsed through the usually homogeneous magazine covers at my local newsstand this morning that times were changing. The cover of Forbes had a tall, black Jay-Z standing shoulder to shoulder (ish) with a short, white Warren Buffet, proclaiming the two “had more in common than anyone would have expected between a 40-year-old rapper from the Brooklyn projects and the 80-year-old sage of compounded returns.”

Having grown up with an image of grey-haired white men as the wealthy business tycoon, I smiled as I picked up the magazine. This compounded by my recent experience at TechCrunch Disrupt where I walked into a bar with a wonderfully mixed crowd who were all dancing to a live performance of Can’t Touch This by MC Hammer, I thought to myself, “The stereotypes are finally breaking down. Jay-Z and people like him have broken the mould.”

Now, I’m not really so naive as to think that we’ve finally entered some sort of post-racist, post-sexist period of time where stereotypes have completely broken down and people are people and everything is the way it should be. La di da, flowers and rainbows. That would be not only naive, but incredibly daft of me. And I’d be ignoring my own situation.

Jay-Z and MC Hammer and a whole group of people in the music industry spent a whole lot of years fighting really hard to be heard and respected by the powers that be. And I suspect that they would tell you themselves that even now, it hasn’t helped their brethren much. It’s not that stereotypes have gone away…it’s that money trumps those stereotypes. Where one mould is broken, another one has been cast.

One of my personal heroes, Cindy Gallop – who breaks all sorts of moulds wherever she goes – posted an article from the New York Times on Facebook earlier today. She’s been posting a bunch of these and gathering what seems to be pretty decent evidence that there is truly a desired TYPE of entrepreneur to fund.

According to the aforementioned article, this type is:

• Young (20′s)
• Male (preferably single definitely without children)
• Manic (obsessed, driven, visions of grandeur, a bit delusional, etc.)

Which is nicely perpetuated in the mythology around silicon valley in movies and books like The Social Network, Startup.com, Founders at Work and Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good – all glorifying a small sliver of stories about a small sliver of success in the startup world, extrapolating that sliver to speak for the overall mould of success. But it’s only a small sliver, no matter how you slice it. According to more in-depth research that covers a slightly wider sample, successful companies are run by all sorts of types of people.

The truth is, I personally fit the mould in some ways that actually work against me. I’m not in my 20′s, male or without children, but I am a little manic. I have gigantic visions of making the world a better place and I see my ideas and my company driving that. I have a fire in my belly that can’t be snuffed no matter what the naysayers, critics or so-called devil’s advocates say. I admit that I’m a bit arrogant at times (although I’m self-reflective enough that I can step back and admit it). I DO eat stress for breakfast and love the type of schedule and problem solving that push my brain and body to their limits. I definitely don’t flinch. I’m so passionate I’ve dedicated my life to this rather than to making gobs of money, which I could have given my work ethic, education, background and ability to lead. And, yep, I may or may not be a little delusional.

If I had a penis and was 10-15 years younger, there would probably be a movie about me, too. But I’m not. I’m a woman who has been told since she was a young girl that she needs to be quieter, more humble, more demure, more agreeable, more attractive, less outspoken, less ambitious, less aggressive and more ‘woman’-like. I was highly unpopular growing up because I didn’t feel the need to fit a mould. I learnt as soon as I did fit a mould, I was rewarded. I got the academic awards and accolades? I was ostracized + called a show-off. Nobody wanted to be my friend. When I slacked off, dressed pretty and laughed at the boys stupid jokes? I was popular! This didn’t change in adult life, either (don’t even get me started on how dating advice on how a woman ‘should act’ fits into this whole mess). There have been studies that show I wasn’t alone in my experiences. Research has shown that women who negotiate are looked upon negatively:

…men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women’s reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more — the perception was that women who asked for more were “less nice”.

It took me until my late 20′s to figure out that the ‘fitting the mould’ strategy wasn’t going to work for me. That it had actually hurt me. By then I was already a single mom and had lost prime time in my journey. But no matter, I’ve been breaking the mould ever since and benefiting from it.

Of course it is frustrating for women like Cindy and myself to watch the stereotypes perpetuate and young men with half-baked ideas easily get funded [note: when I say 'half-baked', I refer to it not being launched, which is what we are told needs to happen before funding these days, but apparently not] while we struggle. But it doesn’t stop us. There are just more barriers. And dammit, when we reach our goals in spite of the barriers, we will use our stories to lift others who break the mould so that the previous stereotypes will give away.

I have a new goal. Once I change the world this way, I will reinvest that money to change the world in many new ways. And I’ll call my fund Broken Mould Ventures. I hope Cindy joins me.

[photo of a many years ago Evan Prodromou by Peter Kaminski]

Just recently, Jolie O’Dell wrote a great post on what it really means to be an Entrepreneur in the midst of hundreds of people claiming to be entrepreneurs around her:

If you have no capital, no employees, and no product, but you DO have another job working for someone else (or if you’re a full-time college student), you’re not an entrepreneur.

O’Dell writes. I would say the same goes for the words ‘startup’ and the title of ‘CEO’.

I’m ashamed to say that, for many years, I’ve used both to describe the wrong thing. CEO of what? I was the sole employee (or there were two of us who were partners in the case of Citizen Agency). Sure, I managed projects, bringing together bright people who worked on great campaigns and products, but at the end of the day, we were all just a group of independent contractors temporarily coming together to create something that we usually didn’t have a huge stake in. There was little risk, just a lot of creativity. We assumed the fun role while the client assumed the risk.

There is no startup without a product. There is no CEO without assuming risk: for reputation, money, other people’s welfare (employees), answering to investors, etc. (all the things that O’Dell mentions in her list for entrepreneurs and more) I’m discovering rapidly that this type of work – having a startup and being in the real role of CEO is very different than anything I’ve done before.

Startup, I’m in love.

I love one minute knowing with intense certainty that what we are onto is something HUGE and will ultimately change the world, then the next minute wondering if I have delusions of grandeur and should be treated for Schizophrenia. But this is a common and desirable theme amongst founders (especially startup ones) I’m told. Either way, I’m happy and loving it and learning quite a bit about why leadership is not for everyone and is definitely important. Here are just a few things I’ve learnt in the past few weeks:

1. A leader sets the pace of an organization. When asked what I most love about my freelance lifestyle, I’d always say, “I can sleep in”. And I did. In fact, I banished the existence of alarm clocks from my life, only using the alarm on my mobile phone if I absolutely HAD to catch an early plane. No more. If I roll into the office late every day (if at all), others notice. Their pace matches mine. I’ve changed all of that. My alarm goes off at 6:30 am and I am up without hitting the snooze button right away. I aim to be the first person in the office every day. I should be.

2. A leader isn’t afraid to make unpopular decisions. I used to ask everyone else what they thought instead of making a real decision. I was afraid to decide anything that would impact someone else in a negative way. It made me popular and liked, but very ineffective. I’ve been making quite a few unpopular decisions and, guess what? Not everyone likes them, but the end result thusfar? So far, so good. Signing up for TechCrunch Disrupt and pushing the team towards launching there was one of them. Best decision ever. Completely nuts and unpopular.

3. A leader has to understand every part of the business. Every part. This one makes me cringe and whine. Every part? OMG I hate spreadsheets and those gawdawful buzzwords around funding (term sheets, run rate, valuation, etc)! My eyes glaze over when talking about hosting and technology infrastructure. I struggle with what is front end and back end. I love data, but am a little confused when it comes to database architecture. So. Much. To. Know. But I have to. I have to at least have a decent understanding of all of these things. I can’t show up to a meeting without answers. Playing dumb isn’t allowed. Leadership means I have a good sense of how all the moving parts of my business works, even if I don’t make them move myself. This will take a while.

4. A leader asks for help. I’ve always been pretty good at surrounding myself with strong people, but where I fall down is actually asking for help. I think a part of me is afraid that if I ask for help, it’ll signal I don’t know what I’m doing. Of course, I know that’s a backwards way to look at it and good leaders ask for help. It helps me learn what I need to learn (see previous point).

5. A leader knows when NOT to lead. You know the feeling – you think, “I’ll just do it myself. It’ll be easier and done right.” Well, that kind of attitude will send a strong signal to the team member in charge of that role that you don’t value their work. And there isn’t anything more demotivating than that. Being a DIY girl, I have to consciously NOT do this. It’s not about delegation, it’s about empowering people to take charge on their own. Sure, I may know lots about a certain area, but I also have to trust that my team mates know their stuff, too. And trust, well, that’s the biggest lesson of all.

There are more lessons than that to come. I’ve only been in this role for a short while. But I’m learning quickly and finding out that leaders DO lead, they just lead with a good balance of being IN the lead (as in setting the example or being knowledgeable) while getting out of the way to let others lead (as in asking for help and letting others take responsibility for their roles). And it isn’t always easy to figure out when to do what.

Wish me luck.