Aug
20
Why the unprovens matter
Filed Under fundraising, management styles
I’ve been debating for the past few days about whether or not I should post this article. It’s certainly not intended to be inflammatory or offensive, but is my honest opinion now that I’ve been doing this for about a year. This article is not intended to reflect our situation at Event Seek as we’ve been very well received by the startup community, but I also believe there is certainly room to improve. I believe there are individuals out there willing to bet on the unprovens, and we’ve worked hard to align ourselves with them. I just hope that the number of these visionary individuals will increase over time and allow Atlanta to blossom into the type of startup environment everyone wishes it could become.
The Atlanta startup is abuzz with opinions both about why Atlanta has a lot of work to do to become a great place to build a startup and why it is getting there and should get more credit for it. I thought it might be fun to weigh in on one small aspect that Jeff Haynie wrote about.
Successful startups are built by any number of people - experienced veterans, ex-corporate types, and brand new bodies. There is a lot of credit given to founders when a company is successful and a lot of blame given when one is not. One, two, or even three individuals are not and can not be wholly lauded/blamed for the ultimate outcome of a startup - they are of course the largest driver of outcome, but the ecosystem, the team, the market, the competition, and a bit of luck also has a lot to do with the final result.
Great founders are aware of all of these exogenous factors and work long and hard to prepare themselves and their company in a way that will overcome any outside influences. They pick a market with real potential, build a team that can overcome challenges, align themselves with mentors and advisors who will support them, and differentiate their product from other competitors. Even with all of this planning and prediction, sometimes great founders with excellent backgrounds and a great idea don’t succeed.
The fact of the matters is, however, that experienced entrepreneurs who have built sustainable successful companies are often better at mitigating these risk factors than those who have not built companies. Often is not always (for clarity feel free to check Merriam-Webster). Given that there are no sure bets in startups, most investors and individuals will flock to experienced individuals because they want to reduce any risk associated with their investment. They should! I would if I was in their shoes.
If no one wants to align themselves with young, unproven entrepreneurs, who will be the next generation of experienced startup architects? There is no talent pipeline for entrepreneurship. Consulting firms, investment banks, VCs, and the like look to business schools to fill their ranks each year because they know great intellects can be trained, molded, and developed into successful employees. The on-the-job training and mentoring allows young, unproven individuals to grow into their roles and eventually add real value to each company. There is no clear career path for entrepreneurs. No clear logical proven set of steps that makes one person ready to lead a startup.
Is this a terrible thing for the system? I don’t think so. It just means that the on-the-job training is critical. And on-the-job training requires one or more individuals to take a huge risk and build their own startup. But these brave souls can not do it alone - they need advisors, mentors, and arguably most of all investors. With no investors willing to bet on these unprovens how can we expect to build the next crop of talented individuals who will become the experienced veterans of tomorrow?
Out west (and I try not to glorify it as many often do), there is a significant number of well-funded startups with VC backing. This kind of capital allows many people to work in early-stage startups and build up the experience and knowledge necessary to work for a few years and then go off to start their own ventures. Atlanta doesn’t have this kind of ecosystem in place and the big wins experienced in the 80s and 90s can not continue to support the numbers of veterans needed for the future.
If the startup ecosystem in Atlanta wants to grow we need to support some experience building and experience sharing. The next generation of startup veterans will come from the rookies of today. We need to support these individuals with both time and money. Look around at the host of companies that are leading the web 2.0 revolution - many of them were started by young unprovens.
Success isn’t predicated by age, experience, or even the level of investment an individual can raise. Intelligence, hard work, ability to adapt to change, and singular vision - these are the traits of individuals who build successful startups and return not only to investors, but to the community that helped them out along the way.
I charge Atlanta, investors, mentors, and advisors to look beyond gray hairs and resumes to find great ideas with driven founders and support them in their quest to build the next great startup. I for one will be watching as the next generation of entrepreneurs matures, learns and develops. I hope that one day I might even be considered one of them.
Posted by: Connor Fee
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Nice post!