By
Julie Meyer, Chief executive officer, Ariadne Capital
Some extraordinarily high percentage of companies go bust in their first two
years. I’m pleased therefore to have achieved two years of sustained growth
and development at Ariadne Capital, the venture capital group that I set up
with Bundeep Singh Rangar in November 2000, four short months after First
Tuesday was sold. It’s also been four years to the day since I set up First
Tuesday, and decided to grow it into a global network of entrepreneurs. It’s
also been fourteen years this month since I came to Europe out of university
in Chicago eager to “faire fortune” and find out what I could do as a person
stripped of culture and context with nothing but my nose and brain to lead
me.
So with these anniversaries swirling around in my mind, I have to step back
and ask myself what I’ve learned. Here are my ‘Top Ten Lessons to Learn’
before you decide to become an entrepreneur:
1. Don’t project your value system on others. One must trust but
verify. Assume the worst case scenario at all times, and then act out of an
“abundance mentality” protecting yourself from the downside.
2. You know more than you think you know. There is no magic bullet.
It’s not a question of choosing Door No: 1, 2 or 3. There are many ways to
succeed or fail, and if you learn to depend on yourself, and realise that
there is no security anywhere, then you have an ability to be an outstanding
leader potentially. What gets you by is your judgment which is honed over
time. Like a cat you learn to land on your feet no matter what gets thrown
your way.
3. Don’t confuse “knowing someone” with, “liking them” or “getting on
with them”. Try to see how a person acts under pressure or with a morally
ambiguous situation before hiring them. Offer ‘Consult to Hire’ positions
so that the candidate must prove himself before you bestow them with a job.
I recently pulled my Office Manager from First Tuesday back to help me with
Ariadne Capital, as I had seen her instincts and judgment under severe
pressure and knew she can handle the pressure of start-up life.
4. Clock speed is everything. Some people operate at a certain intensity
and efficiency that others will never achieve. Key to being successful is to
surround yourself with people who accept your leadership, and who can
operate at your clock speed. Start-up operational experience is critical. Be
very careful to bring someone senior into a growing business who has never
worked in a start-up before. They will slow things down more than you will
speed them up.
5. Always always always follow your gut. Be alive to the small indications
that your business partner is dishonest, or your 23 year old associate is
stealing. If your sixth sense is telling you that something isn’t right,
listen to the cognitive dissonance in your brain screaming, “Red Alert! Red
Alert!”. As you run about, people who lack integrity are counting on the
fact that you won’t put them on the spot to ask about unusual behaviour or
inexplicable events. Put them on the spot!
6. Don’t assume that people who have worked for blue-chip institutions know
how to sell. Start-ups are all about selling. There just isn’t anything
more basic than proving that people buy what you sell. So beware those that
may be very smart – smarter than you!, but they may have absolutely no idea
how to sell a product or build a business if they have always worked for
someone else. Some people have always instinctively considered themselves to
be the brand, and to be capable of building a brand. Others look to attach
themselves to an existing brand. They get their confidence from the big
brand behind them. You need the former.
7. Watch how people spend their own money. You want people on board
who spend your money the way that they would spend their own. Are they
disciplined, or spendthrifts?
8. Do aggressive reference checking, and not just through the references
that the candidate gives you. If even one person gives you a worry about the
candidate, go no further. It may be nothing, but the cost of having the
wrong person on board is too great.
9. Look for business partners and employees that want to change the
world. If they want a paycheck, send them away. Communicate your vision of
what you are building. Connect with them first on that level, and then talk
salary. All great companies have a cause and also are highly profitable.
Without the cause, you don’t get the superhuman commitment.
10. Leadership is about creating the conditions of trust so that people can
excel, innovate and be empowered. Management is about the search for
accountability. All great entrepreneurs have considerable doses of both.
Press on! Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. So few
persist. As my non-executive Director, Lionel Anthony, said to me the other
day, “if it were easy, then everyone would do it”.
Julie Meyer is the Founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital, and can be reached
at:
Julie@ariadnecapital.com
For more information about Julie, see:
http://www.ariadnecapital.com
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