Seen.
Shiny.
This week we saw a business that allowed it's people to shine.
Honest Burger's staff not only include a personal note with food they deliver, but polaroid photo's of the people who prepared it for you.
Businesses are imaginary. They are something we made up to help us be organised.
But business are full of people, and people are real.
When the full personalities of the people in a business shine out, it can unleash invention and create connection. We were curious about the culture and leadership that enables this to happen authentically.
Read.
Step One: Start.
We were inspired by an article this week about Richard Branson.
He shared a story about the first Virgin Airways flight.
It happened because Richard was amongst the passengers who were stranded when a commercial connecting flight was cancelled. Frustrated, he phoned a local private aircraft hire company and asked what it would cost to transport the stranded travellers to their destination.
It worked out at about $200 each. So he asked who would like to chip in, raised the money, and organised the flight. He stuck a piece of paper to the departure gate, on which he wrote "Virgin Airways".
We've found that the difference between people who found businesses and those who don't, is that the people who found businesses, simply have the initiative to start. The rest is paperwork.
Learned.
Space, man.
As a business grows, you need more people.
The founder instinct to take initiative and solve problems, can become a problem in itself. We've seen founders that end up occupying a lot of space in their businesses.
The hardest thing can be to leave space, and wait. Sometimes this is what it takes to allow others to take on challenges and take more responsibility.
Not everyone has the founder instinct to simply push themselves in. But we've learned that if you have the right people around you, when you leave space and wait, they will move to occupy it.
Then you have to let them own it.
And finally.
We've been contacted by Florentine Salmony a PhD student studying what makes founders psychologically different.
We spend a lot of time thinking about that too, so thought her work was cool and super interesting. If you're a founder and would like to contribute and support this research, you can complete Florentine's research questionnaire (it takes about 15 minutes).
We'll share her results in a future #founderhacks!
Don’t forget to check out the accompanying podcast version of #founderhacks for a tantalising live experience of team atomex!
