Passion Kills
“Killing Love” by Marcelle Carmack on Behance
The most overused word in Startupland
At the first Big Omaha, I was excited to speak. I had spent weeks planning my talk. It was on a subject that was very important to me: Failure.
My message, which is simple, was failure was not a destination. Losing was. And entrepenuers are not losers.
The next morning, I was the second speaker up, following Jason Fried (founder of the recently renamed Basecamp).
For those that don’t know Jason he is excellent and opinionated speaker.
As he took the stage, I settled into my front row seat.
“There are a few words I hate. Failure being the biggest one.”
That bastard.
Now here it is five years later, and I’m reading my friend Mark Suster’s blog post, and thinking to myself, “There are a few words I hate. Passion being the biggest one,” and I guess I’m now the bastard.
I have written in the past about my hatred for the concept of passion and how most entrepreneur’s passion is fake.
Mark uses Fred Wilson, Chris Dixon and Mark Andreessen as examples of the investors a BitCoin founder should seek out. Let’s set aside that Union Square Ventures and Andreesen-Horowitz are phenomenal firms, with solid returns and infrastructure support.
Fred, Chris and Mark have shown a track record of taking founders and helping them achieve their visions (with sizable exits). All BitCoin founders should seek them out. Have they been publicly thoughtful around BitCoin? Yes. Does their interest and knowledge about the industry make them potentially great matches as investors? Yes. Is it that passion alone that makes them a great fit? No.
That passion may actually work against their effectiveness. What if the founder wants to go in a different direction? Change course? Finds a point of disagreement around the future of the industry?
Disaster.
Industries and technology change so rapidly that it is impossible to expect an investor, with their responsibilities, to stay as in tune with the changes as the founder. Yet, a strong willed investor will often continue to influence an entrepreneur to make decisions that the founder might not otherwise make. And while the founder may be wrong, not finding out can be equally damaging to the business.
This afternoon at a lunch, a new entrepreneur asked an experienced entrepreneur: “What defines a great board member?”
“I want a board member that understands that I know more about my business and industry. A board member that provides help in the operation of the business (which includes things like introductions and recruitment). A board member that understands that like any artist, I want to see the vision I have in my head exist, and help make that happen, even if I am not the right person to eventually run the business around that vision.”
I couldn’t have had my beliefs around what makes a great VC articulated better. Do I want, as Mark suggests, a VC who has a deep passion for the industry that I want to operation it? Maybe. But that’s not why I want to work with that investor.
Having an investor that is excited to invest in me; believes that the market is large enough to make several attempts at doing something big; sees the solution my team has come up with as an indication of the quality of my team, and can help me be the best founder I can be, matters so much more than passion.
Mark is right that your investors should not look at you just as a meal ticket, and, if you look at Mark’s investments, he puts his actions behind his words.
There is no single word in the StartupLand lexicon that I hate more than “passion.” It describes nothing; provides no value; and generally masks a more articulated position.