Is It In You?

One of the things that you have to have inside you if you are going to be an entrepreneur is a razor-like competitive streak. If you aren’t willing to compete and win, you won’t. It’s really hard to tease that out in diligence. That should be why VCs ask questions about a person’s background. Did you play an instrument? Did you participate in sports?

The participation questions aren’t about all the awards you may have received. It is about what you did to earn those awards.

Entrepreneurs will walk through walls to get something done. You have to love to compete.

If you don’t have it, go into consulting.  Get a gig somewhere else. Do not waste your time in entrepreneurship.  It’s emotionally intelligent to recognize that about yourself and there is no crime in not having that intense competitive streak.  You can still be successful but you have to find a different path.

Competitiveness is an old trait.  It’s highlighted in the story of Jacob and Esau.  An old track coach used to bring this one out once in a while when he wanted to sharpen our edge.  The twin brothers competed in the womb and after they got out of the womb.

When you see something you want, do you go for it?  Jacob saw the greater blessing of the birthright and he went for it.  Jacob looked at his brother, seen that his brother did not want his birthright, and decided to go for it.  Esau could have easily told his brother, “no deal!” 

Esau could have gone to Rebekah, his mother, to see if she would prepare something for him – he did not.  Esau sold his inheritance, sold the responsibilities, sold the honor, and he sold God’s covenant – he didn’t think much of God’s covenant?

I think too often, we are trained via peer pressure in America to understate our competitive streak-especially in the Midwest because in the Midwest we understate everything about ourselves.  It’s our nature. It’s all about being nice. I think you can be competitive and be nice at the same time. You can be classy when you win and it’s even more important to be classy when you lose. Societies “everyone gets a trophy ethos” has seeped into all parts of our lives. Sure, everyone’s important but some people are more valuable than others. Often, that separation point has nothing to do with anything but plain old desire and a will to do the dirty work to get it done.

I also think that a lot of companies are built to solve something that will never earn them a profit. As my old friend the late Professor Paul Magelli said, “If you don’t earn a bottom-line profit eventually what you are doing is just a hobby it’s not a business.” We are forgetting that in entrepreneurship circles today with all the virtue-signaling that is going on.

I have competed for as long as I can remember.  I learned how to fail from competing. When I was a little kid I joined our little league baseball team late in the season.  My father was working on his PhD, and we didn’t get back in town until after the season started.  It was the first time I could ever play in an organized baseball game.  I was not very good at the plate.  As a matter of fact, every time I came up to bat, I struck out.  Every time.  Between games, I would work on it but I still struck out.  In the last game of the season, I finally crushed a ball and got a double.

I remember a coach in high school telling me in a firm and loud voice as I was going through a drill, “I can, I will, I must.” There is no other option. Coaches words ring in my ears occasionally. My father was a coach and consistently drilled in a competitive fire that sometimes is embers, and sometimes flames up. We spent a lot of time in the driveway working on shooting together.  Me shooting, him critiquing.  I can still shoot though I can’t jump over my credit card bill anymore.  Recently, an old player of his was inflicted with an illness that almost killed him. In fact, he was dead for a few moments in the hospital bed. He credits my father and his insistence on competing for pulling him through. A voice ran through his brain and those competitive fires heated up.

If you are going to build a blow out company, there is no other option. You must compete. You must play to win.