In tune with yourself

From the book ‘David gegen Goliath’ by Günter Faltin.

In tune with yourself

Many entrepreneurship theorists build their argument on the concept of opportunity recognition. You discover an opportunity, recognise the chance it presents and mobilise resources to take advantage of it. Ideally quickly, before others also recognise the opportunity and act. However, this approach is not without its problems because it disregards the person of the founder. Do you want to do something for an unforeseeable period of time that makes no sense to you and numbs your spirits more than it awakens them? The highly successful serial entrepreneur Holger Johnson158 says: ‘I hate opportunities.’ They tempt you to leave well-trodden paths without opening up long-term prospects. Opportunities are temporary phenomena. In any case, founding a company in this way is not a way to more self-determined work and a happy life.

»Go for a cause«, says Guy Kawasaki in his classic The Art of the Start. Stand up for a cause. What is important here is that the question of personal consistency is not pushed aside. The great opportunity of entrepreneurship and the founder lies precisely in choosing a task that is in line with personal inclinations and talents, but also with one's own values.

The idea that the entrepreneurial concept should be consistent with the person is by no means self-evident. Funding programmes are not about you, your talents or your personal preferences. The state programmes have the employment effect of your start-up in mind. Because it is hoped that you will be able to create further jobs by setting up your enterprise.

Investors also do not have your personal concerns at heart. They want to see success. Venture capital sets milestones for you that set the pace. The goal is rapid, high growth. If you don't make it, then the 110-page contract, drawn up by clever American commercial lawyers, will be executed against you. I feel sorry for the founders who spend more time preparing financing rounds than working on their concept.

And the founders themselves? Do they start with themselves? Not at all. The idea that successful founding has to do with a brilliant idea is deeply ingrained. As if it all came down to the initial spark, as if a flash of genius would suddenly illuminate the possibilities. But that won't get us anywhere. Most of the ingenious inventions and groundbreaking ideas that we know are usually the result of years of effort and persistent, consistent work on a problem. To see this through, you need to be truly passionate about the endeavour. A flash of genius is, if at all, something that happens at the end of such a demanding process, not at the beginning.

It would be a serious mistake to ignore the founder of the company.

Of course, it's also about the market. It's about offering something that is needed and in demand by market participants. But does that necessarily contradict the idea of including the founder and his personal inclinations in the consideration? When it comes to choosing a career, we also start from the person, even if there is currently more demand in the market for other professions. When it comes to choosing a career, it makes perfect sense to us that we should not ignore the personality of the person making the choice. So why not when choosing the field in which I want to work as a founder? Entrepreneurship is also a profession, even with the chance to get closer to the idea of ‘vocation’ than in dependent employment. If you only think in terms of the market, you run the risk of being as externally controlled in your work as you would be as an employee. But if you only think in terms of the person, you run the risk of leading a kind of artistic existence, with elements of self-realisation but little economic success. So you should always keep both perspectives in mind. The market is the force field from which your planned company draws its energy. Your customers are your energy suppliers – and the lifeblood of your company. But if the start-up concept is not also aligned with the personality of the founder, you run a high risk that your energy, passion and stamina will not be enough to make the long journey from the initial idea to a mature concept, to a successful market launch and finally to building and growing a successful company.

Malcolm Gladwell popularised the idea that it takes at least 10,000 hours of work on a topic to achieve mastery in a field. How can you summon the determination and self-discipline to work for so many hours if the chosen field does not correspond to your own inclinations and does not give you joy? Aren't we inevitably asking too much of ourselves as founders? Most people believe that as a founder, you have to have iron discipline. That is only half true. Yes, discipline is needed, but even more important is enthusiasm. If it is only discipline that gets us to work, even strong-willed people won't last long. Enthusiasm is the more effective element. It makes it easier for us to endure the hardships and efforts - as in sports - and often not even perceive them as such.
Confucius said: ‘If you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.’ A wonderful thought. But difficult to implement. As an employee, the work you are given is not based on whether you like it, whether it brings out your talents and inclinations. It is different with entrepreneurship. You are the one who chooses the profession in which you want to compete. And it is you, as the founder, who can decide which work you want to hand over and which activities you want to do yourself. This gives you the chance to actually pursue a ‘profession’ that comes close to your vocation. In English, it sounds even more succinct and impressive than in German: ‘Earn your living by living your dream’. Only in this way does the saying of Confucius become a ferment that can radically change our lives - and how we work in them.

(Video is in German)