Home > Uncategorized > The burden of expectations
I listened to a reading of “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman” on a long drive back from visiting my only investors (my parents) in Ohio. I found myself applying some of the accidental deep insights that Richard Feynman discusses through his stories to startups. One struck me in particular.
Don’t burden yourself with expectations of others
I think a lot of startup founders struggle with the delusional level of optimism they feel needs to be exhibited to create a successful startup. Combining a crisis of confidence with this delusional optimism can lead founders to believe that uneducated investors are worth their investment. For instance, a delusion-ally optimistic founder may just by their nature, gloss over problem areas or bring more pomp to an idea or plan than it deserves. This in turn produces expectations from investors in excess of the ability of the founders. Nothing is more discouraging than making significant progress, but still falling short of other peoples expectations. It simply does not matter that their expectations may be unrealistic.
Richard Feynman points out when he started as a young professor at Cornell he was a lot happier when he rid himself of other peoples expectations and the guilt of falling short. I think this ought to be kept in mind when funding your company. It’s an easy enough problem to avoid. Get investors that understand your business or are willing to learn and can contribute more than capital.
What you really want to find is someone in your field with no sense of propriety. If you were a physicist in the mid 1900s you would be lucky to meet Dick Feynman. If you are a technology startup now you are lucky to meet Paul Graham. Someone smart enough to visualize the whole problem, honest enough to tell you outright when your mistaken, and humble enough to know they’ll mess up too. Other physicists that had work reviewed by Feynman circulated a memo describing his communication style as “Feynman’s Bombardments, and Our Reactions”. The one time I have done office hours felt a lot like that.
Anyways, If you can’t raise capital on terms where you can be entirely honest with your investors they are not worth having as investors. You need to be able to say “I don’t know” and have them know that is not a bad thing. It means your trying something new, something different. If your business is so simple that saying “I don’t know” is unacceptable than its probably a crumby investment.
Personally, I thrive with hubris combined with foot-in-mouth. So when I give my normal elevator speech that everyone expects, I find it useful to end with something like “or I may spend all your money and give you nothing because it may turn out I’m full of shit”. I’m not suggesting that for everyone, but you can watch their reactions. If they don’t recognize that it is a real possibility they don’t get it and you don’t want their money.
I’m glad I have gotten to tell all my investors that and they understand and fund me anyways. It makes more confident that at the very least I have an idea worth pursuing and makes me feel more comfortable talking seriously about progress and problems with my investors.