Don’t Play!
Don’t Play
Undoubtedly, getting started on the path to entrepreneurship is the toughest part. This period is filled with big ideas and uncertainty… stumbled beginnings and low bank accounts… long hours and intermittent sales… For some, this period can also be marked by lots of saying that you want to pursue your dream but not actually doing much, or, worse, by asking others to do the work!
As someone who’s been there, let me assure you that for your friends, colleagues, classmates and prospective partners – THIS is exasperating! So, on their behalf let me give you a word that they may be hesitant to share: Don’t play!
This can be a tough pill to swallow. But, if you believe that you are called to pursue a dream, vision or idea, yet you are only moving tentatively in that direction then it’s a word that you need to hear. If, when you look inside yourself, you determine that you aren’t yet serious, can’t be serious or won’t be serious, then quit pontificating with and irritating others with your lack of follow through. However, if you’re really sure that you’re serious then: Don’t play!
Let me give you an example or two that might help make the point.
Several years ago, when I was just beginning to consider buying a business, I shared my ambitions with a friend, Fred, who was already a private equity entrepreneur. I admired his success and he encouraged me to take the leap.
On more than one occasion he was good enough to share a deal with me. On one occasion in particular he emailed over a descriptive memorandum and financial statements on a company for my review. A couple of days went by before he called to check in, and he called again the following day as well. Yet still, it took me a few days more to call him back. Family obligations and my full time day job kept me fully occupied that week.
I recall being in a fairly up-beat mood when I did make the return call to my friend over the weekend, but by the time we connected he was in no mood for idle chatter. Fred wasted no time in making his displeasure with my unavailability clear.
I believe that the conversation went something like, “Hey man, are you serious about this? Look dude, this is how I feed my family – so Don’t Play!”
That one-sided chat caught me off guard, took me aback and hurt my feelings. And it also slowed me down. I gave my entrepreneurial interests a break for about a year after that – because Fred was right. I was wasting time –mine, his and others – because I was playing.
But I couldn’t hold my mule for too long. I suppose that I thought that I’d learned the lesson… So at the next lull in my gig I was back to looking for deal flow. It wasn’t long before I found some deals of interest and began spending Sunday afternoons doing industry research and building financial models to see if the numbers worked while watching Tiger play.
Accounting was never my strongest suit so, often, when building these models, I would run into a problem – some small issue that wouldn’t permit the balance sheet to balance (an important detail). Most frequently I found that the problem had to do with the formula for calculating goodwill. This concept and its relation to the other elements of the financial statements always seemed to elude me.
On a particular Spring Sunday my frustration got the better of me so I decided that I would call the best accountant I know, my buddy Rodney. I asked Rodney, who had remarkably caught an error on our accounting exam in graduate school and corrected the professor, if he would take a look at my model and help me figure out with the problem I was having with goodwill.
That may be a reasonable request among friends, but on this particular afternoon I guess my friend didn’t appreciate my interrupting his Tiger watching. He agreed to take a look at what I’d come up with, but he also had a single, direct question for me: “Isn’t buying companies something that you said YOU wanted to do!?”
Damn! There goes that feeling again!
I guess I hadn’t learned the lesson after all. It seems that I was still playing.
But my reaction was different this time. I told Rodney that he was right, turned off the TV and sat in front of the computer until I’d figured out the problem with goodwill for myself.
From there things picked up steam. I became much more focused in my conversations with mentors, much more disciplined about deal review and much more active in my networking. Said differently, I was much more intent on getting it done. I demonstrated more self-confidence, I worked harder… and the results followed… when I stopped playing.
Now I have the privilege of getting calls from friends and acquaintances who want to be entrepreneurs. I enjoy the breakfast meetings and the strategy calls. It’s a joy to see people moving in the direction of their dreams!
But… When we’ve had the same conversation three times, the phone calls become less productive, someone who says they want to be my partner is unreachable, or my downtime is interrupted with requests that I lend more than a helping hand, I am quick to remind them that… Entrepreneurship is how I feed my family – So Don’t Play!
(Actually, getting started as an entrepreneur isn’t the toughest part, but we’ll have to blog about that some other time.)
