Seen.
Avoiding the Bullets.
This week, one of us received the best reference we'd ever received.
Considering taking on an advisor, we realised this person had a connection in our network, and we reached out.
The response was three words long. It read:
AVOID!
AVOID!
AVOID!
Whilst being curious about exactly what we avoided by choosing not to work with this person, it reminded us how useful it can be to to get input from your network.
Equally, one of us had seen similarly clear (both positive and negative) responses when reaching outside out his network.
You'll have to listen to our podcast to hear how he did it.
Read.
Seeing with Dragonfly Eyes.
We found this text, created by The London Interdisciplinary School, inspiring and resonant for founders:
"To better describe the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach, we use the metaphor of a dragonfly’s eye. Dragonflies have compound eyes made up of thousands of smaller eyes. Each of these smaller eyes sees only a tiny part of the whole. But together, they provide a far richer representation of reality - dragonflies see the world at 200 frames per second while humans are confined to 60."
Many of us are prepared by education and our careers to become specialists, understanding a few things deeply. We can fall into the habit of dismissing or undervaluing what we don't understand.
We've seen a lot of new founders fail this way. Coming from a successful career in a particular specialism, all they have is a hammer and so see everything as a nail. It rarely works.
As a founder, appreciating the full breadth of perspectives, regardless of our own specialism - be it marketing, financial, operational, people or anything else - is an important skill.
Learned.
Nourishing Connectivity.
Hard times can be where your networks are forged.
We've learned that by being kinder than you need to, when you don't need to, pays dividends. We're all humans and it's nice to be nice, even though a lot of business thinking would encourage you not be.
When this is done genuinely, and without expectation you will remain in people's minds longer.
When times change and they need what you do, they will be more likely to come to you.
Nourish your network now, and it will feed you in the future.
And finally.
We found a quote from Indian Author and Activist Arundhati Roy. We thought it was inspiring and wanted to share her perspective:
"Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal a gateway between one world and the next."Arundhati Roy.
We're also aware we had a slight technical glitch in publishing our last podcast to match the release of this email. If you were wondering where #founderhacks no. 18 was, worry not! It is now available on iTunes and Spotify.
Don’t forget to check out the accompanying podcast version of #founderhacks for a tantalising live experience of team atomex!
