"Founder Soloing" Why the ascent to successful entrepreneurship requires a safety rope
Climbing without a safety rope might be a way to push your limits and achieve the ultimate adrenaline rush for a free solo mountaineer... going it alone as a founder can sometimes feel like attempting to climb a slide covered in vaseline. Start-ups with potential deserve a support network to cradle the founder and their concept when inevitable slips occur.
Indulge me and the metaphor for a moment... Does the definition of ''Soloing'' resonate with your founder journey?
‘’Solo climbing, or soloing, is a style of climbing in which the climber climbs alone, without the assistance of ropes or another person belaying. It is generally done on higher walls than bouldering. There are several ways to climb solo: Roped solo climbing is climbing alone with a rope backup in case of fall.’’
For the un roped solo purist. the sense of achievement of reaching the summit alone, knowing the ultimate sacrifice could have been fatal must be an undeniable personal high (pun intended).
However, generally for courageous founders, the ultimate mission is creating something of value to a community, creating positive impact or solving a problem. Scaling to a profitable business is usually a prerequisite to achieving the mission.
So, when a solo climber scales to more and more sweaty palm-inducing heights, the consequences of a fall become more catastrophic. Gaining traction for a start-up is not dissimilar to scaling the mountain in this sense. A smart founder gathers a support network as they scale. Organically or intentionally, the solo mission becomes a shared one and with that there is a sense of responsibility. The reality of a fall has far more consequences than your own demise. By now the mission is perhaps paying someone’s mortgage or supporting many families. With every calculated move the daredevil in you recognises that a safety rope might not actually be a bad idea!
A start-up that not only solves the end users problem but offers fulfilling paid employment to 10’s of awesome individuals who you now call the team, is a huge achievement in itself.
Founders that decide on a tactical move to collaborate with a specialist agency during the early stages are investing in an insurance policy. Like a reliable network of safety ropes a well appointed agency (like Hex) with years of experience can de-risk and de-stress the entrepreneur’s climb and increase the chances of scaling to the summit successfully. Thorough strategising means there will be less miss-judged footing and, as inevitable unseen threats do occur, you have an entire team taking the strain.
Yep, I'm still going with this analogy, hang in there... At Hex we assess the situation before committing to a climb with any founder and only fully immerse ourselves in a project when we share the vision. This way we can collaborate passionately as meticulous, strategic, technical and creative partners. Hex is a founder's best ascent buddy; an experienced team to lean on through the early stages. Once safely completing the climb we can pass over the ropes, carabinas and crampons with a set of well documented instructions and training. As investors marvel at your progress to date...
To find out more about how Hex Digital collaborates with founders and helps them scale, book an appointment for a chat.
Meanwhile here’s our start up survival kit in the form of reading material:
- The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen
- Zero to One - Peter Theil
- The Lean Start-up - Eric Ries
- Hacking Growth - Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
- The Start-up Owners Manual - Steve Blank & Bob Dorf
- Platform Revolution - Geoffrey G Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Sangeet Paul Choudary
- Scaling Up - Verne Harnish
- Thinking Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman
- Write to Sell - Andy Maslen
- One + One = Three - Dave Trott
- The art of thinking Clearly - Rolf Dobelli
- Time to think - Nancy Klien
- Break Through - David CM Carter
- Checklist Manifesto - Atul Gawande
- Growing Happy Clients - Daphne Tideman and Ward van Gasteren
- Drive - Daniel H Pink
- Superbosses - Sidney Finkelstein
- Alone on the wall - Alex Honnold
- The Resilient Founder - Mahendra Ramsinghani
- Anti-Fragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Connected by Design - Barry Wacksman & Chris Stutzman
- Think Small - Owain Service & Rory Gallagher
- Angel: How to invest in technology start-ups - Jason Calacanis
Photos courtesy of Photo by Jeff Ochoa on Unsplash and Patrick Hendry on Unsplash