I’ve written before about entrepreneur and venture capital investor Mark Suster and his writings about business are always worth reading.
His recent post pulling together writings on the DNA of an entrepreneur is interesting reading however one point jars – competitiveness.
In Steve’s view competitiveness is about winning at all costs and crushing the opposition.
That’s fine when competing for a customer, fighting over market share or pitching to the same VC investor, but business usually isn’t a zero-sum “if I win, you lose” equation.
Sometimes its about complimentary strengths. In the early days of PC Rescue I tried to partner with an old colleague who had set up a competing business.
Mark was actually a better computer tech than I was, my strengths lay more in sales and administration, had we teamed up we’d have been a good combination.
Unfortunately Mark took Suster’s view of ‘winning at all costs’ and when I foolishly referred customers to him because I was either busy or thought he could do a better job, I found he was stealing those customers.
Eventually I had to cut ties with him, and it cost him money and the chance to be part of something bigger. Mark was greedy but I’m sure he thinks he ‘won’ against me when there really wasn’t a contest.
Geeks are particularly poor at admitting they have weaknesses, in fact their lack of self understanding could be their greatest weakness of all. So drumming a ‘win at all costs’ message into their heads is almost certainly counter productive.
It may well be that this win at all costs view is damaging the mental health of many entrepreneurs, by viewing what others are doing through a prism of “I have to win” almost guarantees depression as often the life of an entrepreneur is more steps backwards than forwards.
As most reporting of startup and entrepreneurs is distorted by survivor bias, we often gloss over this latter point – in reality starting your own business, particularly one that’s under-capitalised, is hard and tough work with a high chance of failure.
That chance of failure means a ‘win at all costs’ mentality could result in a generation of mentally damaged former entrepreneurs.
Mark Suster’s views are really good on what drives the Silicon Valley model of business. We need to take care though we don’t take the wrong lessons which end up hurting our businesses, families and our own mental well-being.
Jackpot image from Henriette via SXC.HU.
