Comments on: Fail Factors – Why Startups Die – The Zealot

By: Undisclosed Entrepreneur

Undisclosed Entrepreneur — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:42:22 +0000

I agree that a zealot not open to reacting to changing business conditions is doomed for failure. In my case, I have been involved in four startups – the most recent one as a founder. In my case, I’ve let business conditions change the original idea into something that is more practical. However, getting too much off the original idea also means that the company treats the founder as someone who is just in for the ride. The ownership has transfered to many operational folks, and the founder is eventually forced out of the company. Also, if the founder’s original idea is diluted, everyone has a field day in pushing their own vision, which eventually causes chaos. The lack of the original idea also means that the new management flounders trying to come up with an idea that may not have legs also, so they try the next idea. Often, this leads to politics between the original folks and the new folks.

By: Simon Gornick

Simon Gornick — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:45:19 +0000

I don’t trust zealots. In my opinion, nobody should. They lack objectivity. It surprises me that VCs seems so susceptible to them. If I were a VC I’d be more impressed with cool reason, a strong business model, and good sense. Perhaps that’s why our small startup is bootstrapping.

By: Tony Asaro

Tony Asaro — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:16:04 +0000

You have written a book already. There is probably enough material that you have written over the years of your observations on business and IT that could fill a book. You just need someone to collect it all and edit it. Then you can review it, change some things, add a bit more content and then publish it.

Tony

By: Doug Rainbolt

Doug Rainbolt — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:44:27 +0000

Your posting reminds me of an article I once read regarding Winston Churchill. There is some speculation that he suffered from bipolar disorder. The manic episodes fueled an absolute self assuredness and take no prisoner “anything is possible” view that was hopelessly contagious. At his heights, he inspired a nation to firmly believe that it would be victorious despite the odds. Another leader may have produced different, perhaps catastrophic results. The point being that different situations require different leaders.

I think that we’ve all witnessed the personality you describe. They are energizing to be around, to a point. Like the economic class addressing the law of diminishing marginal utility and beer consumption, you can only take so much. The problem for these people is that there isn’t room for a partner to balance things out because intrinsically, they don’t see or believe that there is any balancing required. Unfortunately, some of these people would rather kill the company and eat their young than pass it on.

Just as old Winston had people watching for him, the board, in my opinion, has to carefully monitor the zealot entrepreneur. I’m not talking VCs, but carefully selected board members with domain expertise who aren’t afraid to speak up and challenge what is being fed to them. At some point, the charisma has to surrender to sound repeatable business execution perhaps through the practice, knowingly or not, of Boyd’s OODA Loop principles used by top fighter pilots, and business leaders. (There is ample material on the Internet regarding these principles- look up Hammond’s: The Essential Boyd.)

By: Rich Vining

Rich Vining — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:39:18 +0000

I’ve always thought the main reason for failure is that the tech startup’s value prop gets obliterated by the next big idea. The startup doesn’t have the stomach to eat their own children, especially if they’ve been reasonably successful for a even a short amount of time. And they aren’t nimble or big enough to move out of the way and jump into another big idea (Signiant is an exception). But the zealot definitely exacerbates the problem – so I agree with you. VC’s would be smart to give the zealot a term limit.

The other time when startups fail is when one of the big guys put your value-add into their products for free (a la Microsoft).

By: Roman Stanek

Roman Stanek — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:46:06 +0000

I once invested in a startup alongside with several VC firms. The founder (zealot) told me that on paper he’d made a better return on his initial investment than I did on NetBeans. The company was gone in six months.