Founder's Syndrome

It seems like every founder I work for suffers from the same malady. They start out humble, awed by the wonder of the business world and their lack of understanding of how things get done; then at some point further along into the growth of their idea, they morph into a giant, ego-driven monster, incapable of reason or true business savvy. They don't trust the very people that got them to that point. It is uncanny how it seems to be a universal truth with the small entrepreneur who starts out with a great idea and no way to get it into the market.

I thought I would capture some of these changes they experience in a "top 10" styled list.

10. Trust nobody. All of the sudden no one can be trusted. This generally occurs when some real value is created.

9. Take all the credit, and while you are at it, give yourself more credit for what is yet to be done.

8. Second-guess every decision, expenditure, meeting, and strategy that you were not personally involved in...usually for this very reason.

7. Lose your memory of how little you actually know about marketing, manufacturing, and finance.

6. Pick a new group of "trusted" advisors that really only want what's best for themselves.

5. Live the Rock Star lifestyle way before you have the Rock Star dough.

4. Start believing that the level of generosity you show is inversely related to the real value of the equity.

3. You start developing unrealistic expectations of milestones and the amount of work that goes into meeting them.

2. You forget that investors put up that money in the bank and that it isn't yours to do with what you want.

1. You start believing your own BS of how wonderful, smart, and good-looking you really are.

I am not sure why this morphing happens, but I am sure it is directly related to money, power, and self-preservation. This innate behavior must be dormant in most of us, and must only come to life when triggered by some event. As I think about it, it must turn on in us at that point where our dream starts becoming a reality; our idea becomes a product with legs and we start measuring the value, or worse, the future value of our idea. At that point we might actually put the value of our business on ourselves and turn that into what we think our true value is.

"The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil..." (I Tim. 6:10)

Our value should never be represented by what we do for a living, or how successful we become. It should always be about how we are helping others get through life.

Chow!