A Remarkable Volunteer - Bhasker Sharma

Why am I an Entrepreneur

Last week, I was invited to be a speaker and a panelist at Startup Leadership in Boston. Startup Leadership supports entrepreneurs just starting out with mentoring, access to Venture Capital, etc. The discussions were generally around startup journeys, challenges, managing founder expectations, funding, etc. I was the only non-business guy in the room and kept wondering what value-add can I bring to this strongly tech oriented start-up group. I went with the flow anyway.

Somewhere during the panel discussion, the topic moved towards the kind of people you would bring on board as a co-founder. Should she/he be a business development person or a technically sound person. Would you want a Phd or a MBA, What would the VCs like? What would bring in more business and better valuations? etc. Someone started talking about some mathematical matrix to choose the right blend of co-founders so the business gets the right valuations and money from the VC, etc. I tried very hard to concentrate and see merit in this very transactional process of setting up a start-up venture and I was totally confused. Finally, I had to voice what was going on in my head.

I said, "Why are we getting all transactional about this? Is this what setting a new venture about is? A mathematical formula. Setting up a business is like giving birth to and bringing up a baby; Its about bringing to light a spectacular idea you have of making the world a better place to live in. How can you just share this baby with someone over a mathematical formula. For me, a co-founder would be someone I would trust my life with completely because I want this person to stand by me in times of success and hardship. The first few years are going to be hard and if this person can trust me, and I can trust this person and we can get through the shit together, then she/he is a worthy co-founder. For me, that would be the single most important criteria to bring on a co-founder."

I am zapped that what seemed common sense to me, didn't even register to these entrepreneurs. A strange and albeit sad realization struck me. Most entrepreneurs today are setting up businesses to get venture capital money, push their valuations, sell their business and walk away. They are not interested in building a world class business and adding value to life. For me, starting something new has always come from a space of, I see a problem and I think I know how to solve it and I want to build a strong, robust and successful business around it and solve the problem. Its about looking back and saying, we created this business and because of this, the world is a much more better place. That as a value was sorely missing from most of the discussions.

It worried me that we can feeding into a system which only wants to profit oneself and is not looking to create any real value over the long-term. Are these the entrepreneurs we want to have in our eco-system. I am not sure! I am wondering what has changed and where have the true entrepreneurs got lost!!