What Do You Do After You’ve Drank Your Kool-Aid?
Running as CEO of a startup, one of the biggest pitfalls you can have is to over-believe your own Kool-Aid. When you lead a startup, you are a visionary. You see a future and believe in it so much that you put your company, employees and investors at risk to achieve it. For the most part, all startup leaders need this. If you cannot believe enough in your own vision, how else can others do so? So as CEO, you are the top salesperson of your company. You sell to your investors, your employees, your partners, and to your customers. You are the vortex of reality distortion, the blackhole of reason, because you pull everyone into your reality despite not having a product or market to show. So what do you after you’ve drank your Kool-Aid?
I believe all good CEOs inevitably get this. To believe in your own Kool-Aid so much that you convince others to fund your vision. I am by nature very bad at hiding my perception of truth. I say perception because nobody really knows what the “truth” is. Everyone has a perception based on their culture, experience and context i.e. the blind men and the elephant. So I believe in my company’s vision. The super-duper-widget-o-matic I’m building will change the world and end poverty as we know it. I mustbelieve in it. That’s the only way I can successfully sell to my customers, employees, investors and partners. They might not believe 100% in my idea but they will believe 100% in me.
So here’s the downside. This very nature of reality distortion is also my worst enemy. It creates blinders to other “truths”. It creates a bias that my “baby is the most beautiful” and anyone who says otherwise is dumb. It is a blindside in my forward vision. It is a weakness that I cannot ignore. Markets change. Competitors move. Customers validate. Partners affirm. All of which can radically change the value proposition of my business. And if I don’t “see” it, then I betray all those who believe in it.
Sometimes it does take time for a market to validate the value of your product. Google built a search engine at a time the entire industry had given up on “search”. Tivo took years to educate customers on the concept of a DVR. What about Twitter? Try explaining the value proposition of that business. If you were Larry or Sergey (founders of Google) and you listened to what everyone had to say (the VCs and partners) you’d have given up on “search” if you didn’t have a slightly unhealthy dose of your own Kool-Aid.
So where do you draw the line?
How do you keep your overdose of Kool-Aid obsession and overcome your blindside at the same time?
I personally believe it is impossible. I cannot believe and unbelieve in something at the same time. This is especially true for technology entrepreneurs. Most startups fail. This is an undeniable fact. From day one, the odds are heavily stacked against you. Try creating a new product/service that doesn’t exist for a market that may not exist. Then try convincing investors to give their hard earned money to you, partners to take a chance in an unproven you, and employees to work below market rate for you. Then take all these variable and execute on the vision. And if you are like most startups, you are dependent on hitting a series of milestones to raise more funds at each milestone. There is at least a dozen serial points of failure in your path to success. Any sane person will say the probability of success is… not good. That is where drinking your own Kool-Aid keeps you and your stakeholders going day by day, one step at a time.
Now I said it is impossible to keep both my overdose and overcome my blindside at the same time.That’s if I do it all by myself. To achieve it I realized I needed to break it up. I must find a group of individuals (two or three at most) that I completely trust to do two things. One, I trust them to tell me the truth no matter how hurtful it may be. Second, I trust them to do what’s best for my company, even if it means telling me I’m the point of failure. Then I must trust this board of accountability so much that I’m willing to listen and act on the anti-Kool-Aid. This precarious balance of Kool-Aid versus pragmatism is the only way to make sure I face my music.
One more thing. And I learned this recently. This group of individuals must love you enough to spend the time to listen to you and you need to be upfront with them on their investment of time with you as well. That’s why having a group of individuals help. If one is too busy, then you go to the other. You need to tell this person, “I need to run something by you and I need 2 hours of your dedicated time. If you are busy, that’s absolutely fine. You won’t hurt my feelings. I just need to know.” Or “Can you have a look at this when you have a chance and let me know what you think? If you don’t have the time to really walk through the whole thing, no worries. Just let me know”. What you don’t want is someone who is time constrained to spend 3 minutes scanning through your product/proposal and give you advice without really understanding the matter.
So what do you do after you’ve drank your Kool-Aid? Build a Board of Accountability. For startups, this is often a board member (Board of Directors). This person can also be part of an official Board of Advisors. Sometimes this person can just be a friend whom you trust and respect. And it doesn’t apply just to startups. Want to loose weight? Be a better father? Be a better husband? Who are the people in your life whom you trust and respect who will tell you what needs to be told? Find them and overcome the Kool-Aids in your life.
Article originally posted at colinwong.com.
Colin Wong is the CEO of Zoecity, a social media company. Properties include zoecity.com, sharein.com, and tr.my.
