Imagine two people have an hour to try to get through an obstacle course. The first person walks up to you and says, I got this thing figured out, I've taken a few engineering and physics classes, so I think I have a pretty good idea of how all the obstacles work. I'm going to spend the first 55 minutes really planning out my approach. I'm going to think through the contingencies and draw up a few diagrams, in that last five minutes, I'm going to go through the obstacle course according to my plan. At this point, you're interest is peaked, so you walk over to the second contestant and ask her what her approach is going to be. She responds, I have a basic idea of what I'm going to do, but ultimately, I'm just going to jump right in, see what works and what doesn't. If something doesn't work, I'll try something else. At this point, the announcer calls the two contestants to the starting line. The first contestant pulls out some sheets of paper and a pencil and sits down, ready to plan his course of action. The second contestant ponders the course for a second, then crouches down, ready to jump in. When the starting gun fires, the person standing next to you leans over and asks, so who do you think has a better chance of getting through the course? What do you think? We've talked about some of the challenges you'll face as an entrepreneur, but I want to make sure I'm being clear enough with you. It's not easy being an entrepreneur. Anytime you're blazing a new trail, it's more like running an obstacle course than running a marathon. With a marathon, you know exactly what you're in for. You can plan when you want to run faster, when you want to take your water breaks, even what to do if you get a muscle cramp. With an obstacle course, you just have to be ready for the unexpected. In the case of our two competitors, the person who spent all his time planing his approach ended up with a very nice plan. Unfortunately, he wasted most of his time working on his plan, which flew out the window as soon as he real, realized that the course was much muddier than he expected. Our second competitor, clearly the entrepreneur of the two, discovered the mud soon after the starting gun fired, so she walked slower and spent more time picking her spots. Later, after she fell off a balance beam a few times, she figured out, if she crouched low enough, she could get across. At the end of the course, after she got hit with a few swinging medicine balls, she was able to figure out the timing and get to the finish line. She took two steps forward and one step back, but kept making progress, and learning, always learning. The other competitor spent so much time working on his plan that when conditions on the ground didn't match what he expected, he was done. Entrepreneurship isn't for you if you hate uncertainty. I can't tell you everything that's going to happen as you build your business, but I can tell you this, it'll never end up the way you expected. Instead of a linear progression from a to b, it's going to look much more like a drunken walk. You'll eventually get there, but it's going to take some time and a few missteps. The difference between entrepreneurs and everyone else is that we don't think of stumbling as failure. Instead, we view it only as the way to learn. By taking our lumps, especially early in the process, we'll be able to see the reality as it is, as opposed to how we hoped it would be, and we'll be able to adjust our plans. The reason that investors generally care more about the team than the idea is, we know, in our line of work, nothing happens the way we planned it. A great team will be able to learn from their failures and come out even stronger.
