I'm a Meat and Potatoes kind of Entrepreneur
Hard work, head down, no hype means I get shit done but rarely get the respect.
It’s true. I've always been a producer more than a noisemaker. Personally I think that’s more important for an entrepreneur. The ones that actually product work product are the ones that ultimately get a win. But man, it can be frustrating when nobody sees it.
Lately it seems that the most of the startups that are winning are the ones that create the most hype. Every day on Techcrunch I read another story about a new startup having raised millions with barely a prototype and a first time team. I have nothing against it — truth be told I wish I had the ability to make it rain without actually getting wet. But it’s not me.
I'm a hustler and I like to think of myself as a pathfinder — the type of person that ‘finds a way’.
Start me on a path and I’m going to traverse the options relentlessly, testing and experimenting every possible route and making the best possible choices along the way.
I imagine a river before it’s found it’s way to the ocean. It’s unstoppable. It just goes where it can, flowing up or down, left or right, over or under, anywhere and any way it needs to reach it’s destination. There’s nothing sexy about it.
Sure, the Nile is something to behold now, but was it always?
I can't tell you how many investors I've heard say they invest in people, but the truth is, most don’t. They invest in destinations. They invest in a planned outcome. One of these days I'm going to do an analysis of the top 100 startup outcomes in history and see how many of them actually ended up where they said they would. I probably don't need to do the work in truth — most people intuitively know the answer is probably zero.
But what would happen if people actually did back the horse, not really caring where it was headed, just knowing that this horse was a trailblazer — it would find the right path, not follow a path because it sounded cool.
In startup speak it’s called a pivot, but I really hate that word. When companies pivot they are making a conscious decision to change their destination. In my mind you're constantly pivoting until you reach the right destination. That’s the skill of a true entrepreneur and that’s who people should get behind.
So when I say I'm a meat and potatoes type of entrepreneur, this is what I'm talking about. Fuck craft beer and kale salads. Put a boulder in front of me and I'm going to crack it in two. Tell me the market isn't big enough and I'll show you a bigger market. I know how to make money. I know how to find customers. I know how to build things people need.
I just know how to figure it out even if I don't know what it is I’m trying to figure out just yet.
Sorry, that’s me.
