I typically write about founders and cofounders (their dynamics and psychology in particular), and about entrepreneurial culture, motivation and mentorship.
These are captured in this collection of Essays.
I have also written several series which you can also find in the links below:
Technological Disruption Series
University Entrepreneurship Series
The Essays can also be found further below.
"No enemy is worse than bad advice" Sophocles
Bad Advice is legion. It is the default status of advice as typically delivered in human interaction. Often proffered casually by people who possess real (or perceived) authority and/or expertise of some kind, it tends to leave an indelible imprint in the mind of those receiving it, whether they choose to pursue said advice or not.
In most cases it is only marginally harmful. In the realm of important matters, however, when it is proferred and subsequently followed, it is often life-alteringly devastating.
It is my belief that a fair measure of the suffering in this world could be traced back to bad advice. Most of us are in fact victims of having received and acted upon bad advice, whether we realize it or not. How many well-meaning parents, for example, have given their children devastatingly bad advice on important matters over the centuries? If I ask myself the famous Thielian question from his book, Zero to One , (“what important truth do very few people agree with you on”), this belief of mine would be at least one of my responses.
When applied to the realm of startup founders, acting on bad advice can be similarly destructive. Startups after all, are incredibly delicate organisms.
As a founder, one is literally barraged with advice multiple times a day. The founder is the proverbial “actor” after all, is in the midst of “venturing”, and thus naturally there are a cast of personalities who feel they are entitled to offer their point of view, whether or not they have been asked for it. For illustrative purposes, let’s list an array of sources of advice, (not comprehensive of course), that a founder might encounter on a typical day:
a mentor madness day at an accelerator in which they are participating
a meeting with their startup lawyer, accountant or other service provider
a board member of their company
an “advisor” they either have engaged or have been introduced to
a friend, spouse or family member
a colleague from a past work experience
a fellow founder
an investor in the company, or an investor with whom they are meeting
a startup coach or mentor
an “expert” in a certain field to whom they have been introduced
an employee of the founder’s startup or of another startup
This inventory, however incomplete, reveals a fair population of advice givers within the founder’s circle. How should a founder navigate these interactions and are there certain heuristics one could follow to avoid falling victim to bad advice, no matter how well-intentioned it might be?
Having both received and acted upon incredibly bad advice myself and having observed incredibly bad advice being delivered to others, (including to multitudes of founders), throughout my life, I have thought deeply about this problem over the years and listened carefully to the rare moments when top performers discuss this important and often overlooked topic. Below I have assembled a few rare glimpses into how some elite protagonists navigate the general topic of “advice”. I have noticed a common theme throughout.
Let’s begin with Valentina Schevchenko, a world champion martial artist. She is currently the UFC’s Women’s Flyweight Champion.
During her recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Joe at one point asks her about her philosophy on navigating advice. She responds in English with a strong Russian accent so I have appended missing words using parenthesis to clarify her meaning in this transcript of mine. Any emphases in bold below are mine as well. For those interested in learning more about this fascinating champion and her powerful mindset, the full episode is on Spotify and can be found here.
—
Minute 59:45
Schevchenko: A person who doesn’t know a fighter’s psychology, or (who) never was in a fight, or (who) doesn’t know how it feels in a fight, they will give you wrong advices, they will teach you wrong things. No, so it’s completely (wrong), you don’t want (this) to happen. It’s something that will mess (with), gonna choke, gonna strike against (you).
Minute 1:00:16
Rogan: Did you get advice from other fighters? Did you train with other champions and get advice from them at all?
Schevchenko: I trained with other champions, but I don’t need advices. The only person whom I take advices from are my coach, my sister and my mom. Only three persons I consider have (the) right to give me advices. (For context: her mother is President of Muay Thai Federation in Kyrgyzstan and a lifelong martial artist. Her sister is also an elite world-class mixed martial artist competing in the UFC.)
Rogan: Obviously it’s working.
Schevchenko: This is the most important (part). (laughs)
A little later: Minute: 1:01:17:
Schevchenko: Even if you listen (to them) for 1,000 times. If they haven’t “felt it”, (their advice) will never work for you. (It’s) backwards. When I feel a person trying to give too much advices when no-one asked them to give that advices, I think OK maybe I have to get away from that person.
—
Compare this advice with that of legendary founder, (Sun Microsystems), and investor, Vinod Khosla. In an interview with Sam Altman in 2019, he reveals his philosophy on advice for founders. You can watch it here in its entirety.
Minute 3:46
Altman: What percentage of investors in Silicon Valley do you think are good long-term company builders.
Khosla: I get into a lot of trouble for saying this but 90% of investors add no value. My assessment (is that) 70% of investors add negative value to a company. That means they are advising the company when they haven’t earned the right to advise the entrepreneur.
Some of the junior people here (at his firm) when they ask me, hey- at this other firm young people are going on boards, can I be on a board? I say you haven’t earned the right to advise the entrepreneur so it’s unfair to the entrepreneur, so no!
Just because you got an MBA and joined a venture firm doesn’t mean you’re qualified to advise the entrepreneur.
Biggest piece of it, not the only way, is, have you built a large company? Have you gone through how hard it us, how uncertain it is, how traumatic it is to go through?
—
Here are some select quotes on advice from author, independent scholar and former trader, Nassim Taleb. He is world renown for such books as Skin in the Game, (which is in part a treatise on how to identify and avoid bad advice), The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Bed of Procrustes, and Anti Fragility.
“Beware of the person who gives advice, telling you that a certain action on your part is “good for you” while it is also good for him, while the harm to you doesn’t directly affect him.”
- Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life“Avoid taking advice from someone who gives advice for a living, unless there is a penalty for their advice.”
- Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life“I hesitate to give advice because every major single piece of advice I was given turned out to be wrong and I am glad I didn’t follow them. I was told to focus and I never did. I was told to never procrastinate and I waited 20 years for The Black Swan and it sold 3 million copies. I was told to avoid putting fictional characters in my books and I did put in Nero Tulip and Fat Tony because I got bored otherwise. I was told not to insult the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal; the more I insulted them the nicer they were to me and the more they solicited Op-Eds. I was told to avoid lifting weights for a back pain and became a weightlifter: never had a back problem since. If I had to relive my life I would be even more stubborn and uncompromising than I have been. One should never do anything without skin in the game. If you give advice you need to be exposed to some losses from it.”
- Commencement Address, University of Beirut, 2016
—
In these examples note how each person refers to a “right” or some kind of proper standing to give advice. The advice-giver must have “earned” this right.
Schevchenko would never take advice on martial arts from someone she doesn’t recognize as having immense credibility in that field. Khosla does not allow people on his team who are right out of grad school and who have never run a startup, to sit on boards of his portfolio companies. He is also quite critical of his peers in Venture Capital- saying most create negative value to their portfolio companies. Taleb famously invokes Hammurabi’s Code as a heuristic when discussing the asymmetries associated with providing advice.
All this surely sounds “severe” to the modern ear. Khosla admits he gets into “a lot of trouble” for stating his beliefs.
But giving advice to a startup founder on what path he or she should pursue, for example, is another thing altogether than giving advice on what entree to order in a restaurant. Likewise is advice given from a physician to a patient in a different category. Likewise for advice given to someone like Schevchenko, who literally risks her health and life everytime she enters the octagon.
When I visited a very credentialed dermatologist some years ago concerned about a persistent mark on my temple, he dismissed my concern after having a quick look. Having read Taleb’s Skin in the Game, I held my ground and the doctor and I had three tense exchanges during that visit. He grew angrier with each polite challenge to his authority. I trusted my instincts and wanted him to biopsy it. He dismissed my concern after looking again, calling the mark a keratosis. At last he reluctantly and angrily capitulated and agreed to take a sample to have it biopsied. There was a visceral contempt in his voice. It was a highly unpleasant interaction for me.
Two days later- who do you think called me to tell me I had a cancer that needed to be removed via surgery immediately? It was certainly not the great, credentialed doctor. It was of course some minion to whom he delegated delivery of the news. To Taleb’s persistent point, the great doctor had no “skin in the game”. I literally did.
Had I listened to his advice, I would probably have lost a decent part of my face a year later. I was “severe” in how I stood my ground, if you like. But the stakes were too high, the topic too important, to be “nice” and to listen to the “great” doctor. I have only one face after all.
Similarly, founders do not have “multiple shots on goal”. In this sense they are profoundly not like investors who have a portfolio of companies. Founders are working in one company at a time and putting many years of their lives into the effort. But it’s more than that. In many cases they are deploying their entire “youth” towards the cause, and/or their entire soul, and/or their nights and weekends away from their families, and sometimes, sadly, even their physical and mental well being if we’re being honest. One wrong move and it can all crumble to nothing.
There are many terrific people in the startup ecosystem with enormous experience and great judgment. Yet with the rise of entrepreneurship, there has been a concomitant increase of less-principled opportunists who slither their way into such circles. So it is imperative for founders to know with whom they are speaking and to do their diligence. The founder must know or find out the reputation of the people before listening or inviting their counsel. They must further understand a person’s specific experience and expertise and just as importantly, where it begins and ends.
Similarly, if you are someone giving advice to a founder, you have to know your limits and should feel free to say, “I have no experience in this area”, should the conversation move away from where you know you stand on firm ground. How many times have I seen someone with expertise in a field, flush with the excitement of having influenced the listener, then begin to freewheel in areas where the have not “earned” the right to offer advice.
I have and always will subject myself to this same discipline. The stakes are simply too high and must be respected.
I will sometimes hear people, (usually investors), utter the phrase, "he/she is difficult", in hushed tones when referring to a certain founder. My ears immediately perk up and I usually want to meet this "difficult" founder. Of course they can be difficult for the wrong reasons, (no integrity, egomania, etc). I'm certainly aware of this. But if they are difficult in certain ways, such as wanting to push the limits of the possible, not accepting no for an answer, not tolerant of bad advice, not ready to compromise- I'm usually very excited to invest in and work with such a person.
Such people are often very polarizing. They rub certain people the wrong way. Have you seen the treatment the golfer, Bryson DeChambeau, has received on twitter and in the press and from some of his fellow players? He's trying to do something never before tried in professional golf and he's certainly not your average guy on the PGA tour. A physics major in college, he takes a scientific and data-driven approach to the sport with an intensity few can match. For one he has cut all his irons to the same length to maintain a consistency of weight and feel. No one in the world does that in golf. He also swings the club in a "single plane" manner, also highly unique. He's bulked up like a linebacker, pushing his conditioning and speed training to insane levels. He now swings at speeds that would break most people's backs, including tour pros, and has become the longest driver on Tour. And he IS difficult, sometimes can be quite awkward and is not always in control of his emotions. He's trying to play a kind of golf at the highest levels that no one has ever seen before. It's literally a high-wire act where anything is possible. Even his caddy of the past several years actually quit during a tournament a few months ago. The intensity had simply worn him out. Bryson is often a figure of contempt and ridicule, his occasional meltdowns are mocked, his quirky and geeky personality simply turn many people off.
I'm on the other side of this- and am a huge fan.
Have you watched the 100 Foot Wave on HBO yet? I highly recommend it. It's the documentary about the life of the great big wave surfer, Garrett McNamara, and his quixotic obsession with riding the largest waves in the world. Check it out when you can. He is also "difficult" and uncompromising, some people calling him insane.
I coach a few founders like this. Basically I mainly work with founders like this because I understand them. I can help them be more effective because I have had the great fortune to have worked with some remarkable people like this in my younger years who influenced me greatly. They simply see things differently and want to strive for outcomes that seem to many too strange or unattainable, or too dangerous. They are just like the DeChambeaus' and the McNamaras' of the world.
If you feel you are this kind of founder, let me know.
By the way- last Fall, DeChambeau won the United States Open at Winged Foot, one of the hardest courses in the world. He was the only player under par and overpowered the course.
And yes, McNamara ended up riding the biggest wave in the world. Check this video out. Be sure to keep sound on.
So bring on "the difficult ones"- they make the world better and drag the rest of us along with them.
Here it is: The second post in this series, which reflects on the remarkable flourishing and momentum that I’ve seen develop in the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Columbia University over the past decade.
In the first post in this Series we had a quick look at a sampling of some of the great companies and founders that have emerged from the ecosystem over the past decade. Thanks for all your encouragement and tweets and help with companies I may have missed. Keep it coming!
In preparing for this post, I took a look at the various venture capital funds throughout the country that have Columbia DNA on their teams. It turns out that Columbia alums are on the teams of more than 300 venture funds in one role or another! And whereas listing all the venture funds that have Columbians on their team would be too voluminous an exercise for one blog post, I've listed the 40+ venture funds below that have Columbia alums at either the Co-Founder, Partner or Managing Director level. Not surprisingly, Columbia graduates are among those running some of the most vaunted names in the business (Sequoia, a16z, Accel, FirstRound and others), as well as many of the emerging venture franchises of the future.
Now entering my 11th year at Columbia I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the remarkable flourishing and momentum that I’ve seen develop in the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the University over the past decade. It has no doubt mirrored the ascent of NYC's entrepreneurship ecosystem and ridden the tidal wave of university entrepreneurship that we have all witnessed nationally. Yet it's also been great to see the work of so many internal champions at Columbia see the light of day; students, alumni, faculty, and trustees alike. We over at Columbia Entrepreneurship take the view that we're simply helping to harness and facilitate what can only be described as a cultural transformation and help tell the stories that need to be told. Hence this series of posts I'm going to write.
It’s also important to mention that so many of us at Columbia are inspired by the legacy of the late Bill Campbell (photo above) who served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for many years and inspired us through his encouragement and mentorship to step on the gas pedal of entrepreneurship as an institution. Many people only know of his legend in Silicon Valley -- but he’s just as much of a legend around Columbia where he was once an undergraduate and then the beloved head football coach before returning years later as Chair of the Trustees.
As for this Series of posts - I thought we'd first have a quick look at a sampling of some of the great companies and founders that have emerged from the ecosystem over the past decade in Part 1, then have a look at the Columbia alumni in the venture capital space in Part 2, and lastly have a glance across all the great programs percolating and the terrific entrepreneurship faculty across the university ecosystem in Part 3.
We’ll keep the main Columbia startup directory updated here so we have an evergreen resource over the coming years. You should go there for the larger list which we continue to curate and build upon. Many are helping us build this master list and I want to especially thank Naval Ravikant for helping us out with this. We will be using Angellist data and other sources over time to enrich the startup directory of Columbia founders page over time, so please send any more submissions of tech companies founded by Columbia alumni you come across to entrepreneurship AT columbia DOT edu as we continue to build this record on an ongoing basis.
OK, onto a sampling of some of the great technology companies and founders that have emerged from Columbia over the past decade. Here are just a few of some of the prominent venture-backed companies founded by Columbia graduates over the last decade. To learn more about the Columbia founders of each company simply click on the logos below.
---
Let's start with some of the companies that have already become household names:
The next batch are some very promising, up-and-coming venture-backed companies that may soon become house-hold names:
----
Stay tuned for the next part of this Series, Part 2: The Investors.
I recently wrote this article for Amex Open Forum. The original text can be found here.
Everywhere I go, I hear the same refrain from fledgling entrepreneurs I meet: “I’m looking for a co-founder.” I hear it from many of my students, from folks at various entrepreneurship events and meetups, and from people suffering in jobs at large companies who would love to pull the trigger on their startup—if they only had that critical co-founder.
And here’s why they’re on a fool’s errand.
The most common type of co-founder that’s usually sought is, of course, the technical co-founder, someone who can make your latest Internet-enabled business idea come to life by coding it for you because you don’t have the skills to do so. But some people also tell me they just need a co-conspirator because there’s too much work to do and they’d get lonely without a co-founder. It’s a fair point—and one that Y Combinator’s Paul Graham discusses in this incredible post.
But I’m actually here today to tell you: stop looking for a co-founder. Stop asking people to help you find one, and stop talking and thinking this way. I say this not because it’s massively annoying and clichéd by now (which it is), but mainly because the very act of looking for a co-founder is already a sign that you are hopelessly unprepared for the coming venture—and going about things in a completely backwards way.
Think about it this way. Let’s say you had this dream about sailing around the world for a few years. How would you go about realizing this dream?
Would you immediately start looking for an experienced sea captain with whom you could team up? It certainly seems a logical choice on its face, right? And let’s say you miraculously found one such old sea-dog, replete with forearm anchor tattoo and corncob pipe, in your first few weeks of searching—how would that play out?
Well, he’d probably do all the sailing, right? (Mainly because you don’t know how to sail and have zero experience.) He’d probably have to plot the various legs of the journey, too, right? (Because on day one, he would tell you that your plan to take a 36-foot wooden sailboat across the Bay of Fundy in winter isn’t the best course of action.) He’d probably be the one standing at the wheel whenever you hit rough weather, right?
Hmm. I also bet you’d have to pay him something to actually participate in this venture as well, no?
Let’s say after six months he tells you he’s run out of his favorite pipe tobacco and bails on you while you’re docked at some far off port. What do you do now? You probably should have stayed home and read some Melville or Joseph Conrad. Let’s face it—real sailing was never for you.
But hang on. Let’s say you had said this dream of yours was all-consuming and you were dead set on making it happen. Let’s say you just disappeared for a while and learned how to sail, became intimate with the latest technologies and the best routes, and became a fixture at your local sailing clubs and docks?
What likely would have happened with this approach? My guess is that you would have made great friends in the sailing community, over time. The relationships would have been genuine and based on mutual fascination and love of sailing, adventure, and the sea. You would have learned a ton about this new world and, slowly but surely, you would have become a part of it. When you finally decide to make that journey to Timbuktu, one of these friends—maybe someone with a lot more sailing experience than you, but who respected you a lot and knew your character and talents—might just suggest that you embark on that journey together.
Business is the same. Even though it’s just little old you steering your company, take comfort in the fact that we’re living in an era in which the individual entrepreneur is empowered with tools and access in a way that people could barely have imagined as recently as a decade ago. You want to open a store? In 10 minutes you can be up and running on Shopify. You want to amplify your voice with a marketing campaign? Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are massive communities you can tap into for free. Don’t know how to build a website? Hop on Codecademy or take a Skillshare class and you’re on your way.
Even without a co-founder, you can acquire skills and employ powerful tools to get to a minimum viable product all by your lonesome. In fact, it’s so easy and accessible, there really is no excuse not to. Imagine how powerful this is. You can generate a massive amount of value before even thinking about having to dilute your equity. Ironically, this is actually the best way to find co-founders, early employees and investors—just get a real business up and running by yourself!
If and when the time comes to partner up, just know that great partners come in all shapes and sizes. You can’t predict and plan for their arrival, just like you could never decide to meet a potential spouse next Saturday night. So how will you know they’ll make a good co-founder once you meet? You won’t.
The key is not to rush into business with someone. Spend plenty of time with them, bring up difficult issues directly when appropriate, and see how they handle themselves in a variety of situations and circumstances. Are they thoughtful and considerate of your point of view? Do you share values with them? What are their other life relationships like? Like any journey, the key is slow and steady.
In my last post on OPEN Forum, I made the case that entrepreneurs should stop actively looking for a co-founder. Now I’m here to tell you that if you think you have in fact found the right partner, you should be extremely careful and not rush into any arrangements.
Although it’s shocking, the fact is, a huge percentage of the companies I come across in my various roles as an entrepreneurship professor, mentor, and investor are doomed to fail essentially before they ever get started, due to founder incompatibility.
The reasons for these breakups that are given in retrospect by the founders are some variation of the following:
“The equity split was wrong from the beginning.”
“We had different visions for the direction of the company.”
“We never saw eye-to-eye on major issues.”
“He took advantage of me and stabbed me in the back.”
“Once the VCs came in, she sided with them and pushed me out.”
Guess what? These are symptoms, not causes.
I would say that the most frequent cause of co-founder disputes is the simple reality that the founders were never well-suited to each other (and often unsuited for the market they sought to enter) for any number of reasons. Some of the typical incompatibilities I have seen over the years include:
No doubt there are plenty of success stories out there in which the founders were roommates—or there were “too many” of them—but in my experience, these are truly exceptions to the rule.
Here’s the qualities that successful co-founders usually possess:
Complementary skill-sets (such as a designer and a coder)
There’s a lot to do when you’re launching a company. It makes sense to have a co-founder that has aptitude where you don’t, doesn’t it? Some teams have one founder as the frontman/woman and one as the ops person, while some companies are founded by a coder/designer combination. Jobs and Wozniak are the classic example of the hacker and creative partnership.
Shared values and mutual respect
I tell this story to my students. Years ago a prospective investor interested in a company I was launching asked me if I had ever been to my co-founder’s house. I was literally tongue-tied. The answer was no, but I had never even thought that this might have been important. I didn’t realize at the time how right he was. When I then visited the co-founder’s home, I realized that I was not going to be in business with him. He treated his wife somewhat disrespectfully, the place was a total mess and in one fell swoop I saw a completely different side to the façade he had been presenting to me and others.
Shared motivation
John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins is well known for saying that the best teams are comprised of missionaries, not mercenaries
What this means is that the best entrepreneurs are motivated by the mission of their startups and not the money. Make sure you are in this for the right reasons—and that your co-founder is, too.
Deep loyalty and friendship
There’s an old saw out there about never doing business with a friend. I always thought this was a flawed premise.
As I’ve stated earlier, the primary reason for co-founding with someone needs to be the value they bring to the table, but if that other person happens to be a true and loyal friend, you are extremely lucky. You’ll never need to waste a minute worrying about his loyalty or about getting stabbed in the back. If you’re not that close yet, take your time—but if you don’t at least see yourselves getting to be super loyal to each other as co-founders, don’t partner with him.
My main point is you really have to know the other person deeply. You both must be self-aware and understand how important the relationship is, and be mature enough to handle the inevitable disagreements with great professionalism and understanding. Remember this—if you both want what’s absolutely best for the company, you’ll always find a way through.
(Click here for the original post on Amex OPEN Forum)
Most of the readers of this blog know by now the importance I place on resilience as a quality that entrepreneurs need to possess. I'm always preaching it to my students at Columbia and to any founders I mentor. I remind them too, that no one can be resilient if they are working on something they do not care deeply about. It is simply not something one can manufacture. As an investor I'm of course always trying to determine how resilient founders are before I even consider investing- in fact I go so far as to call my investment vehicle Rugged Ventures™ so that people have an idea of the type of founders I'm looking for. I've also written here about just how much I relate to the "war-time" CEO paradigm Ben Horowitz described in his terrific book as a result of my own experiences as a founder. And yet when I talk about this quality- I always try to talk about it in the larger context of "life" - not just in the context of startups.
I winced many times when I read Ben's book. I think that's why I learned so much from it. He suffered immensely and took one battering after another. And endured.
And I winced earlier this week also, much moreso- when I learned of the passing of a personal hero of mine, the legendary Grandmaster Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi.
You may never have heard of him- but Korchnoi was a colossal figure who bestrode the stage of grandmaster chess throughout the 20th century and amazingly- well into the 21st. He took on and beat all of the greatest players in the world from as far back as Levenfish, who was born in 1889, to the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, who was born 101 years later in 1990. He maintained this high performance level well into his 80's, whereas most grandmasters see their skills begin to recede in their 40's. He was the a four-time champion of the Soviet Union, played in ten Candidates tournaments, qualifying to play for the World Championship final twice, and defeated nine world champions multiple times during his life. His achievements in chess were simply spectacular.
Yet he is also known as perhaps the strongest player in world history never to be world champion. His life and career were full of bitter and devastating disappointments, immense sacrifices, enormous suffering and endless struggle.
Reading the story of his life would make anyone wince- after all- for most of us, our lives have been so much easier by comparison. Few human beings were forged of the same steel as Korchnoi.
I should first mention that he and his family endured and survived the great Siege of Leningrad when he was just a ten year old boy. This no doubt indelibly shaped his personality and mindset. This was a 2.5 year-long siege that saw famine and illness lead to the deaths of 1.5 million people and the evacuation of a similar amount. It is considered to have been "the greatest destruction and the largest loss of life ever known in a modern city". As a chess-player it should be mentioned that he was no prodigy- only rising to the elite ranks after enormous effort and several decades of work. Upon reaching this pinnacle, the Soviets elected to favor the younger Karpov over him to be their champion and protege, limiting Korchnoi from playing in prestigious international tournaments. He bristled under this suffocating climate and became the first top-flight Soviet grandmaster ever to defect from the Soviet Union. He sacrificed everything and became persona-non-grata thereafter - the utterance of his name was not countenanced in his native country for decades to come. He was separated from his wife and son who were subsequently imprisoned during the course of what became his one-man-battle against the might of the Soviet regime, in which he fought his way- match after grueling match to twice qualify as the finalist to vie for the world championship head-to-head against his great foe and nemisis, Anatoly Karpov.
The matches against Karpov are the stuff of legend and are renowned by the chess community worldwide. Books have been written about the wild, paranoid atmosphere of these titanic clashes. The regime marshaled every possible advantage they could exert against the dissident including recruiting the greatest Soviet grandmasters and trainers to prepare Karpov night and day before the match started. During the 1978 world championship match they even went so far as to install a noted mystic/hypnotist by the name of Dr. Zukhar in the front row to distract Korchnoi throughout the games and let fly the rumor that Korchnoi's son had been imprisoned and was being tortured. Imagine attempting to compete at the highest level in such a forbidding atmosphere.
And yet Korchnoi endured and fought back tooth and nail. Notice in the photo below the mirrored glasses he wore to counter-act the effect of the Soviet hypnotist.
korchnoi glasses
In this particular world championship contest, though trailing for most of the match, Korchnoi mounted a legendary rally to draw level with Karpov- only to lose the final game in heartbreaking fashion.
And yet still he endured and kept rising to the challenge- again and again- never relenting.
I've been thinking about him all week and I realize that we should not wince for him nor lament his great disappointments. He himself would never have countenanced it- and he would have uttered one of his memorable caustic remarks to accompany his disdain for people's sympathies. That is because he relished the struggle and came fully alive when he encountered these enormous challenges. It was who he was- he reveled in it. He was a survivor and a fierce fighter- and it was his pure love for his craft- his art- that made him a symbol for all those who dare to take up the mantle and fight for their beliefs and for what they love. He was resilience personified.
RIP, Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi
korchnoi and kasparov
korchnoi vs. karpov
In his great book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz talked about being a “Wartime CEO”. It was the first-time I had ever heard that expression but it resonated powerfully. Reading that book was akin to drinking a double espresso at 10pm. I did not put it down until the wee hours of the morning. It is now “required” reading for all my students. So what’s the difference between a peace-time and a war-time CEO of a startup? Every startup is rife with incredibly trying experiences after all. My understanding of what Ben means by the term “wartime CEO” is a CEO who is running the company when all hell breaks loose- not for a few weeks- but for months- even years on end. It means you’re living on the knife’s edge between survival and death for long periods. It is evident that Ben’s difficult experiences at Loudcloud/Opsware indelibly shaped his mentality and approach to startup life. He’s the unique combination of someone who has both a kind and gentle demeanor and the courage to do whatever is necessary to pull a company back from the abyss.
He says that "peacetime in business means those times when a company has a large advantage over the competition in its core market, and its market is growing" and gives the example of the Eric Schmidt era at Google. Ben added that at Loudcloud he was probably "a peacetime CEO for three days and wartime CEO for eight years"!
Upon reflection it occurred to me that you don’t choose what kind of CEO you’re going to be. Circumstances dictate what goes down in your entrepreneurial life and you need to play the hand that you’re dealt. It’s how you play that hand that ultimately defines you as a startup CEO.
I too was forced by circumstance to become a “war-time” founder in my first startup. I was young and naive about so many things. There were no blogs and “startup communities” back then to go to for advice and support. We were expanding and opening our healthcare facilities in states up and down the east coast. In one state, however, BCBS & Medicare pulled the rug out from under us just months after providing written assurances that they were going to cover our treatment. I’ve written about this before here.
This was the equivalent of walking into a bar with a smile on your face to meet up with friends and suddenly getting cold-cocked by a massive punch. That blow immediately put our existence in jeopardy. People’s livelihoods were at stake- people I had hired- people who in some cases had moved across the country to make this happen. Long-term leases had been signed with personal guarantees to banks. If this facility blew up we were screwed in more ways than one. This decision, by an influential insurer with many tentacles, could have spread to other geographies and other insurance companies. We could not allow this precedent to stand.
It took us two years of jungle warfare to come back from that blow. In the meantime the survival of that facility hung over our heads like a black cloud. For those 24 months, tough and brutal decisions were the only decisions that presented themselves. There was no respite; there were no “breathers”. It was an ugly and scarring zero-sum-game. Ultimately we fought our way back and won but the personal and psychic cost was immense.
This experience (and others) deeply shaped my mindset forever. It molded me as an entrepreneur, as an investor, as a teacher and as a coach to many.
As an investor now, I’m always on the lookout for entrepreneurs “on a mission” who have the courage to face outrageous and unexpected challenges- people who have no quit in them.
As a coach and teacher- I’m giving out smelling salts early. I want folks to know what they’ve signed up for and to expect the unexpected.
Werner Herzog
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the BayKipling
Watch this video below before we talk, (yes it's worth your time):
Questions for you:
Is this the trailer for a new Werner Herzog documentary?
Or is it just another awesome example of what journalism can be with the likes of @Vice as opposed to the shallowness of the MSM?
Is it the story of a new kind of entrepreneur (Chinese in this case) the likes of which the world has never seen?
Or is it merely the story of the new generation of railroad barons or oil magnates- the new Carnegies and Rockefellers ?
Is it merely the story - (as the genius/protagonist/entrepreneur himself states) of "the mining era of Bitcoin", as we might now talk of Picasso's blue period or the Bronze Age?
Or is it the post-modern riposte to the mythic, Campbell-esque dark subterranean workshop of the smithy of the gods, Hephaestus?
Or is it a mere expression of "Schopenhaurian will" expressed via an entrepreneurial venture with shareholders and employees and cables and fans and hollow rooms...
Is it a precursor to the soulless world of the predominance of machines and their hapless lackeys who oil them and tweak them assiduously only to take breaks for video games and cigarettes - much like a prison guard might relax from his shift?
Or is it the same soulless furnace of production we see throughout the world at the beginnings of any Industrial Age- the same menial dank conditions we saw on the lower east side in the sweat shops, that we see throughout the developing world in factories a la Foxconn, or in the coal mines where men and children destroyed their youth and their lungs?
Or is it the dawn of an emerging age that will liberate us from the servitude and obeisance to a financial system that subjects us to transaction costs and fees upon fees layered upon each other so as to chip away at the honest labor of hardworking men and women around the world?
Or is it the threnodial hum of a new dawn that the cosseted western mind cannot yet fathom?
Or is it the visual manifestation of an Andreessonian distopia where software eats the world?
Or is merely the colossal manifestation of a brilliant, focused entrepreneur's vision?
How do you see it?
(I am officially long Bitcoin)
:)
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the country families had gathered around the hearth and reveled in the peace and quiet of the season. Children were on their best behavior having been reminded of the impending arrival of all-knowing Santa Claus. Angels and VCs had consumed large quantities of alcohol and food and were borderline comatose. Even the internet had slowed to a crawl. Not a creature was stirring….... wait, that is except for my friend @semil who catalyzed yet another epic tweet storm of opinion on Twitter- this time on the subject of pro-rata rights! The effect? Bile was spilled, ghosts were invoked for sure- but of course, it was a rollicking discussion. I too was roused from my reverie by @semil's unexpected X-mas rabble-rousing and he and I had the following exchange:
"Leave it to the one and only @semil to stir-up a pro-rata discussion on Xmas eve? :) " - dave lerner (@davelerner)
"LOL it was my master plan entirely! :)" - Semil (@semil)
"families of angels and VCs from NYC to SV are wondering where we all went :)" - dave lerner (@davelerner)
This wasn't the first time pro-rata rights had been discussed on the internet. Leading voices had weighed-in via their blogs. But I did note that plenty of folks on Twitter that night, (including plenty of would-be entrepreneurs), had little understanding of what pro-rata rights actually are nor how they effect real-life funding scenarios.
Also, as many have pointed out- with the advent of dozens of new seed funds, AngelList syndicates and the emergence of more and more super-angels, the "pro-rata" right at the very first round has become extremely relevant of late... 'tis the season for pro-rata rights indeed.
Let's do a quick definition so we're all on the same page and then I'll try to give my own perspective on the underlying dynamics via real-life scenarios.
QUICK DEFINITION:
Pro-rata rights allow an investor to maintain their equity percentage of a company, in which they have invested through multiple rounds of investment. As an example, if an investor has 0.5% of a company after she invests in the angel round, she "has the right" to maintain that 0.5% through subsequent funding rounds, by reaching back into her pocket and investing however much $$ it takes to maintain that 0.5% (so that dilution cannot be forced upon her).
Scenario: Entrepreneur Raising an Angel Round
The entrepreneur is raising her angel round. Is it safe to assume that she would want her earliest investors, (who are backing her before she has had any success at the riskiest point of her startup's life), to at least have the right to maintain their equity percentage if she ends up doing well and raising more money. Right? Yes?..... Uh, well, sometimes, maybe not. What's going on here?
"I will walk away from a bad document. I am also willing to walk away if I don't get my pro-rata rights. Many angels invest in the first round and sometimes they invest again in the second round, and then they are out when round three takes place. I don't want to be out. I feel like I took the biggest risk coming in at the very beginning and with that I want to continue keeping my percent of the company that I bought in the first round by continuing to participate (invest) in each round at my pro-rata share. I am in it for the upside. If the company is proving to be successful then I want to be rewarded in the upside for my risk."
"Capturing pro-rata” is sooooo important in early stage venture."
"all angels should get prorata, period. if you don't get it you're a sucker." - jason (@jason) December 24, 2014
My Take:
Of course you should give your earliest investors pro-rata, (if they want it). They are taking the most risk of anyone and should be able to participate in the upside (if there is one). To me this is just honest business. But this advice comes with a warning:
Only let value-add angel/seed investors into your round to begin with (especially in the cash-flush funding environment we are in now). You’ll be rewarded with a cap-table full of productive investors and a reputation as a stand-up entrepreneur.
Scenario: Entrepreneur is now Raising a Second Round (probably a Series Seed or Series A) An entrepreneur is raising his Series A. He had a great group of early-stage investors in the previous round, with fair documentation including, pro-rata rights. Because his company is doing extremely well he's being courted by multiple top-tier VCs. He ends up choosing a term sheet from Fund A that is syndicating with Fund B. The entrepreneur is looking for $3M total, and the two funds agree on a $9M pre-money valuation. Unfortunately for the previous investors, the VCs want the ENTIRE allocation. This means that they want to put in all $3M. They are not leaving room for anyone else. Gulp!
This is the "THEY SAY NO" scenario. You might remember it from this snippet from the opening scene in Gladiator. What now! Guess what- this happens all the time. The entrepreneur is a stand-up guy and wants to do right by his early investors and implores the VCs to allow for some room. So- what are the dynamics?
As @Jason mentioned in the Xmas Eve tweet storm:
"sharp elbow list" - jason (@Jason) December 24, 2014
"people are going to treat you as poorly as you let them; if you're right hold your ground. period." - jason (@Jason) December 24, 2014
Not really new normal. Always the case. Each party uses leverage #RealPolitik #Unpleasant - Mark Suster (@msuster) December 24, 2014
What are potential outcomes:
My Take:
In these difficult scenarios, legal rights actually mean very little. It boils down to loyalties, relationships, leverage and reputations. Things can get ugly and feelings/egos will most likely be bruised. Even the most well-meaning founder can fail to navigate all these opposing interests and people will get angry and upset. There is no easy way through.
My practical advice is that if you are an early-stage investor you should have been absolutely doing everything you can to help the founder all this time. If you're a founder, fight like hell to honor your investors' pro-rata, especially for the ones that really helped you get you off the ground. These are the ones who have truly "earned their pro-rata".
So you can see that I'm a big advocate of founders giving pro-rata to those investors who want it during the first round of funding. Of course this presumes that you have chosen your investors wisely and done your diligence on them.
In subsequent rounds founders should do everything they can to honor these rights- but when they are between a rock and a hard place- they need to go to bat for the early investors who added the most value along the way.
Some additional posts:
- Here's a humble post on the subject by @semil himself who describes his impressions as an investor relatively new to these dynamics.
- If you really want to understand more of the high-level dynamics and market forces at play with regard to pro-rata rights, simply read this tour-de-force by "Big Sus" himself. As usual, @msuster takes us through the many nuances.
- Aaron Harris from YCombinator has voiced his point of view here
- And Joanne has described one of her unpleasant experiences here
ˈdiləjəns/
noun
careful and persistent work or effort.
Middle English (in the sense ‘close attention, caution’): via Old French from Latin diligentia, from diligent- ‘assiduous’ (see diligent).
-----
Diligence! It's the sort of word that commands respect. "Be diligent, children", says the kindergarten teacher to us. "Have you done your diligence?" says the trusted friend advising you on the job offer you just received. "Let's do some diligence on this" we investors say gravely to each other after hearing a very impressive entrepreneur pitch her business to us. "I'm gonna do some diligence on this guy," say the founders of a company to each other after meeting a potential investor.
"Diligentia" (in Latin): "close attention, caution, assiduousness, effort, care, rigor, perseverance.... " It's obviously not a matter to be trifled with, right? It also sounds like it should take a fair amount of time to "do well".
While diligence is certainly not a matter to be trifled with, it is a process that often requires some hacking. The startup world moves at high speeds and for better or worse, fundings these days can occur in the blink of an eye. So whatever side of the table you find yourself on, you need to be nimble and adjust to the pace. I can recall a venture fund whose partners I knew well some ten years ago. They would produce 50-100 page memorandums on each investment they were considering. This "analysis" would then be brought before their "committee" before a decision was made. Their diligence process was thorough, voluminous, assiduous, comprehensive..... and relatively worthless. I know this to be true, because that fund no longer exists today. They had no exits. In some ways you could say that they simply moved too slowly, or maybe it was the old "garbage in-garbage out" problem. Perhaps, but my view is that it was their wrong-headed view of what effective diligence is that was the real problem. Their 'diligence' was essentially "academic", contained deep analysis of the markets derived from "industry reports" and had little to do with the actual strength of the team they were considering backing (or the "ground truth" of the opportunity). More on what I mean by "ground-truth" below.
First, here are my current thoughts on "hacking diligence", (though I'd ask that you add your own views in the comments section below).
Ground Truth:
To put a finer point on both 'ground truth' and the 'limits of diligence', let me leave you with some questions to consider:
"I rarely think about big themes. This business is like bird spotting. I don’t try to pick out the flock. Each one is different and I try to find an interestingly complected bird in a flock rather than try to make an observation about an entire flock. For that reason, while other firms may avoid companies because they perceive a certain investment sector as being overplayed or already mature, Sequoia is careful not to redline neighborhoods."
If you hadn't heard- over at my day job as Columbia's Director of Entrepreneurship, our team was proud to recently announce the opening of our Startup Lab downtown in Soho. It's an incredible space built-out in partnership with our friends at WeWork and in true collaboration with our various partners at Columbia's Business, Engineering, Law, SIPA and College and their respective Deans. We currently have 71 young Columbia alums representing all of these schools running approximately 40+ startups in a gorgeous location. Naturally we've layered mentorship, programming and office hours into the weekly operation of the Lab and it's been a great start for everyone. Columbia University, after it's initial beginnings in downtown Manhattan, (at the Trinity Church Schoolhouse in 1754), some 260 years ago, finally has returned downtown with this awesome satellite location. Naturally, it took this massive tidal wave of university entrepreneurship to encourage us to commit to this big move- so all power and credit to the unstoppable force of entrepreneurship.
Enjoy the video describing what's going on:
This is part of my Series on Entrepreneurial Culture.
There are many occasions in the life of an entrepreneur or investor when bold action is required: Do we make this acquisition? Should we hire this developer? Do we offer them a term sheet? Tweak the pricing? We've all been faced with such critical moments when a decision needs to be made.
In fact, it's very much the archetype of the "decisive man/woman-of-action" that is etched into our collective imagination when we think of the qualities of a successful "leader". Lately an entire science of leadership has sprung up with an army of "coaches", "leadership experts", leadership masters degrees and the like suddenly available to us. Thousands of business books and academic case-studies extol, analyze and critique the decision-making prowess (or lack thereof) of executives and investors in American business.
It's an amazing phenomenon and I certainly don't begrudge anyone who makes a living from this. I have, however seen this stuff poured into more than one executive's head (by people with zero business experience) with dire consequences for their businesses. Bias based on skewed perceptions of "leadership", "action" and their perceived benefits, leads many executives down a mistake-filled path.
Interestingly, amidst all the noise about leadership and action, one rarely encounters stories about the wisdom of “non-action” – the wisdom to defer or to simply say “no”. Among investors, for example, one rarely hears a discussion of one's "negative portfolio", (the investments that were considered but that didn't get made). Similarly, among entrepreneurs we only occasionally hear stories about the decision "not to hire that guy", or "not to sign that industry partnership". I guess it's just easier for us to talk about things we've actually done as opposed to things we decided not to do, even though our “non-actions” are every bit as important as our actions.
The reality is, sometimes the best move of all is to wait a bit before making a decision. What's wrong with thinking things over, letting it all settle a bit? Why get into this rush-to-action mentality? Perform your diligence, lend the decision the time it deserves.
If you don’t feel ready to make a decision, the right answer may well be to do nothing. If you’re feeling pressed into a decision, the right answer is probably “no”. Watch some of the great Russian chess grandmasters play and you'll notice how they'll often repeat moves twice in critical positions before the time-control, giving them extra time to mull over a particular committal move.
Watch some seasoned executives take their sweet time when talking to competing companies hoping to hire them. As everyone else drips with sweat, they're the coolest ones in the room. And let's face it, most of the time deals we're working on take much longer than we thought they would. Sometimes they drag on endlessly and tempers get short. The key is not to react to provocations. Stay cool and watch the situation play out, i.e., do nothing.
So although there are times when decisive action is absolutely required- as Paul Newman puts it in the video above, "sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand".
(click on this link to play video)
This is part of my Essays on Entrepreneurial Culture.
Start-up culture is very much built upon people's reputation and their word as opposed to the transactional/legalistic constructs of corporate culture. Once the word is out on someone being unreliable, mendacious, phony, mercenary or worse, his/her career in the local ecosystem is pretty much over. Angel, VC, Founder, Lawyer- it doesn't matter. No one will fund them or want to be funded by them again and they will have difficulty finding people to work with or for them. So whereas this kind of behavior is often ignored or tolerated in corporate or non-startup environments, the self-regulating "street-justice" of the start-up community is often much swifter.
So if you're just stepping into the entrepreneurial scene, have a listen to the video above (by clicking on the photo) in which Brother Mouzone lets Avon Barksdale understand exactly what's at stake in no uncertain terms. You could tell Avon knew the deal the minute Mouzone stepped into that barber shop.
As they say in The Wire, "the game is the game".
Speaking of chess & startups- I thought some of you might enjoy this scene from one of my favorite movies, Training Day, and delivered by one of the true greats, the talented Denzel Washington. (If you're not comfortable with profanity, definitely don't press play.) When you're launching a startup, you've got to have the right mindset. It's competitive out there, everyone and their brother is launching a company these days. Can you really get from zero to one? One important aspect is of course understanding the fact that "the shit's chess, it ain't checkers"! :)
If you just want to hear the "money-line" over and over again- here is a shorter clip:
If some of you were wondering why I've been so slow on email for the last few months or more likely- where the heck I've been of late- here's a quick update:
I'm happy to say I've recently been appointed as Director of Entrepreneurship @ Columbia University. Our mission is to take the whole university to the "next level" and establish the conditions wherein startups and the culture of startups are encouraged throughout the university. Obviously there's a ton involved with stimulating cultural transformation- but a large part of that is helping cut through all the silos and encouraging the various schools to work towards the same goal. As we all know Entrepreneurship is multidisciplinary by nature and great founding teams by definition are comprised of people with complimentary skill-sets.
In the short time we've been operating we've had great speakers to campus (including Jack Dorsey: video here), tons of events and programming, have launched VC office hours, legal startup office hours, immigration office hours and are planning Columbia's first entrepreneurship festival for the Spring. We've also unleashed an elite layer of startup-school/acceleration for some of our more advanced startups called CSuite. Some heavyweight Columbia alums are helping move the needle for these teams- including Amol Sarva, Inaki Berenguer, Jared Hecht, Brandon Kessler and many others.
I'm also just so fired-up to be working with some incredibly accomplished colleagues. These guys think big and just make stuff happen:
We just launched the website. Check it out when you have a moment and if interested feel free to sign up to receive periodic updates. Follow us on twitter here.
Lastly, I'm still blogging here and still teaching my startup classes at the Business School where I enjoy working with so many talented and enthusiastic Columbia students.
I'll keep you posted as all this develops.
Hope all is well, Dave
@jack during his visit to Columbia. cofounder of Twitter and Square
This is part of my ongoing Series on Entrepreneurial Culture. I see people in the startup world being careless, screwing up, cutting corners, making excuses, and worse (a lot worse)- all the time. I'm far from perfect just like the next guy and have made my share of mistakes as we all have. Most of the time I see the little things- but sometimes- and that's when it gets really unfortunate- it's the big things.
Some little things I see:
People in the tech world being petty, small, selfish and manipulative - and not helping out the community (translation: only out for themselves)
Folks who go into every meeting with an agenda and see the world entirely through the lense of what can I get from this person (translation: robot, non-human)
CEO sending out invite for a call to his advisors without checking with them on dates/times. I tell him to use doodle, etc. He tells me he's too busy and whomever's available will join call. (translation: sloppy)
Fledgling entrepreneur comes to meet with me, we discuss his proposed business- at end of convo he says, "that sounds like a lot of work". (translation: a joke)
Entrepreneurs talking smack and minimizing others (competitors, other entrepreneurs) the first time you meet with them. (translation: insecure- shows weakness)
People intro'ing others to strangers without asking for permission. (translation: laziness & lack of consideration)
People with huge problems with their calendar and email. I know some great people that just can't get organized, are always canceling meetings last minute- and are just a train wrecks. (translation: a real shame)
People ask a direct question and the person responding evades the question with a long-winded response full of hot air. (translation: pathetic)
Forwarding emails clearly marked "confidential" without a second thought. (translation: careless)
Some big things I see:
Founding team (first-time entrepreneurs) "goes dark" on their early investors for months and then emerge saying they are shutting down company. They do so with an evasive email full of legalese and nonsense. When called-out on it, they say they were pressured by their lead investor and "didn't know better" because they were "first-time entrepreneurs". (translation: pathetic & corrupt)
Junior VC's and Venture Partners taking meetings with entrepreneurs knowing they'll never invest but wanting to gather competitive intel. (translation: jerks)
Guys in the startup world hitting on every woman they meet with in professional settings. (translation: deeply uncool and pathetic)
Broker-dealer types posing as angel investors that take advantage of unsophisticated/fledgling entrepreneurs. (translation: predatory)
If you do any of the "little things", I highly recommend you stop doing it. It will serve you well in your career. If you do the "big things", well, I've got nothing to say to you other than "take a hike".
I recommend that if you see others doing the little things to call them on it and help them out. If they're doing the big things- I recommend you stay away from them permanently.
There's really no room for this in the startup world. We're a small community and we shouldn't be cutting corners, short-changing each other or worse.
As Marvin Lewis says below- Be A F----'in Pro.
Here’s the video.
This is part of my ongoing Series on Entrepreneurial Culture.
In the tech world, we hear the term “warm introductions” bandied about ad nauseum, often from the horse’s mouth—namely, that it’s the best and sometimes the only way for entrepreneurs to meet angel investors and venture capitalists. A so-called warm introduction occurs when person A introduces person B to person C with an express endorsement of person B. Person A is basically telling person C that they are vouching for the character and worthiness of person B.
That’s the explicit message, of course. The implicit message is quite powerful as well and can best be expressed by what types of behavior just won’t suffice when it comes to introducing yourself. The short list includes some or all of the following admonitions:
Any of these sound familiar? Well, you’ve probably been either on the delivering end or on the receiving end of some of these, if not both. That’s because this sort of behavior is endemic in the business world. These behaviors are all symptomatic of the root problem, which can be summarized as “being lazy and thinking short-term about your human relationships.”
Let’s go deeper. Are any of these behaviors familiar to you as well?
All of these behaviors are the result of deeply flawed understanding of how human beings operate and what they value. They also reflect a rather selfish and opportunistic way of looking at the world. In the age of the internet and social media, it also reflects an immense laziness and amateur approach to connecting with other people.
So let’s get back to this concept of warm introductions. Why are they the sine qua non of business world interaction and the supreme currency of all business networks? Well, at its core, a warm introduction is an endorsement wherein the one introducing is explicitly vouching for the value, authenticity and character of the person, and making an implicit statement that there is mutuality in the sense that he or she is worth the time of the person to whom an introduction is being made. If this currency is abused, the one making such introductions will no longer be respected, his judgment will be called into question, and his reputation in the community will suffer. That’s a pretty high standard indeed.
To facilitate a warm introduction, first get permission from the person to whom you’d like to make the introduction via a short, crisp email that gets right to the point. If they are amenable to being introduced, here’s an example of what the actual intro could look like:
Liz,
Thanks so much for your willingness to be introduced to Arthur. As I mentioned, he is a veteran business development professional who is looking to join his next venture. Given that your company is right in his sweet spot of enterprise security, I thought it would be good for the two of you to meet.
I worked with Arthur for four years at -------- and can’t say enough about his effectiveness and work ethic.
Best,
Dave
Notice I asked for permission first in an earlier email, and then in the actual introduction I reminded Liz of some of the details about Arthur. I also expressly vouched for Arthur once more. I didn’t go overboard, but kept it short and sweet while still hitting all the relevant points.
So who are people that often receive and give warm introductions? Here’s my take on what qualities they typically possess:
Apart from capital, warm introductions are literally the most important currency in business. They get people jobs, initiate partnerships, help people raise funds and can often make an extraordinary positive difference in people’s lives and the lives of businesses. When they are made carelessly they can literally be devastating. If you think about it, it was a warm introduction that probably got you into most of your jobs, most of the capital you’ve raised, and possibly even how you met your spouse. Treat the whole process with great thoughtfulness and care—it will make a huge difference in your career.
(Click here for the original post on Amex OPEN Forum)
