Seen.
Stick or Twist.
A business we're working with has chosen to stick.
In spite of extreme challenge during the past months they persisted. They have just secured additional funding and opened a new future for themselves and their team.
We were reminded of the entrepreneur's curse: a chronic inability to give up. Steve Jobs used to talk about it as a reality distortion filter. Relentlessly seeing the world as it should be, not as it is.
We admire founder persistence, although notice that stories of successful persistence include something beyond tenacity. These founders were open minded too. They spotted the opportunity they were holding out for when it arrived, and seized it.
We wondered if the curse is better understood as persistence without open mindedness. This can end up as the definition of madness. Trying the same thing over and over, hoping for different results.
Read.
Beer and Puppies.
Gav Gillibrand is a personal trainer who publishes a blog.
A recent post posed two questions to consider when choosing people to work with. We hope Gav won't mind us borrowing it, but we thought it relevant to founders.
When considering who you work with, ask yourself whether you would have two beers with them, and whether you would let them look after your puppy.
Some people are no, no, and are perhaps best avoided. Some are yes, yes, and might be your inner circle. Some will be yes, no - fun but not trustworthy. Some are no, yes - trustworthy but not much fun.
Whilst fun and simple this felt like it offered unexpected depth. Perhaps an invitation to access intuition - as well as robust process.
Learned.
Tumult and Tempest.
We got some feedback from our friend and regular #founderhacks listener James Burchell.
A couple weeks back we shared a metaphor of how a captain may sail through a storm: on the bridge, watching the seas, making second-by-second decisions.
James reminded us that we don't learn to sail on calm seas.
This gave us hope.
The global community of founders are undoubtedly facing unprecedented and almost unbelievable challenges. The first ever worldwide pandemic in globalised and digitally-enabled society. Confronting paradigm shifting change on a daily basis.
But perhaps, just perhaps, we are witnessing the forging of one of the greatest generations of entrepreneurs of all time?
And finally.
We're delighted that TiPJAR, a business we seed-funded and bootstrapped into existence alongside it's founder has just closed £1m in funding through a combination of Crowdcube and private investors.
We wish them every success with the exciting next phase of the business!
Don’t forget to check out the accompanying podcast version of #founderhacks for a tantalising live experience of team atomex!
