Shorten Time Between Starts

Originally posted on Substack October 6, 2023

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.", Winston Churchill

We hosted Startup Wakes as part of our Founders’ Club(FC) events at 349. I borrowed that term from Brad Feld.

In our case, I would wait until a founder was ready to discuss a failure, then invite them to speak at FC. I would interview them in a small room of aspiring/operating entrepreneurs. I would always end those nights by asking that founder what they needed and how we could help?

Do you need a job? Do your people need new jobs?

Basically, how we can help you, as you navigate a failure?

These days, I’m deeply fascinated by how we do, and do not, support failure when it comes to business creation.

Starting a company is like a birthday party or a wedding. Everyone wants to show up to cheer you on, nothing but pats on the back, go get em buddy!

Failing is more like going through a divorce. People will support you but you’ll likely have to pull them into it begrudgingly and they may avoid you at the coffee shop. Failing is mostly an individual, personal experience. I always joke that the only people taking your calls are the CRA and your banker. Actually, I suppose that’s not a joke or funny?

(No one wants to see a ‘divorce picture’)

Some context. You can argue, or change, the numbers below but I’ll assume I’m in the right ballpark.

• 10% of people have the ‘natural attributes’ to attempt starting companies.

• 30% to 50% of job creation are driven by the new companies those people create.

• While some founders certainly hit a homerun on the first company they attempt. Many don’t achieve that until company 3 or 4 or 5. That’s why VC leans more towards investing in founders who have already failed a few times.

We all benefit from the success of company creation…..but an individual, or small group, must endure the failures.

If the average entrepreneur succeeds with company 3 and it takes 5 years between those starts then we’re waiting 15 years to reap the rewards. If you could magically shift the time between starts to 3 years then we’re only waiting 9 years.

Not only do I want us to better support individuals when they experience company failure, there could be an opportunity for us to improve our overall ecosystem by reducing the time between company starts.

After a failure, the individuals involved need time to heal. That may be financial, repaying lenders and previous debts. That could be personal, getting time with family and friends. It may be physical, eating better, sleeping and getting those runs in.

If we offered better support at the failure/healing stage, would that reduce the time between starts? If so, what type of impact could that have, when applied across our entire ecosystem?

If you could even reduce the average time between starts by a few months or weeks across our entire ecosystem, the impact could be massive.

To be clear, I don’t think anyone should push or rush someone to start a company, ever. Providing better support for our individual entrepreneurs to get through a failure seems like the right thing to do, full stop.

Could a side effect be that it also speeds up the process of moving on to the next company?