Get the QUESTION right

I started this post to share some reflections on a classic Depeche Mode song (Get the Balance Right) and how it says a lot about entrepreneurship in its quirky satirical way, but my (evidently unbalanced) subconscious took me back to a startup Board interaction I had recently witnessed. So now I am compelled to share that story instead:

I painfully saw how an entrepreneur who had obviously spent many days of his invaluable startup time researching an answer to a prior Board request get slammed by a Board member for doing so.  This is not because the data the entrepreneur had painstakingly uncovered was bad, statistically insignificant or irrelevant, but because the data was ANSWERING THE WRONG QUESTION.

As entrepreneurs we face a million questions a day that cannot wait to be answered. Answering each one takes time and effort away from answering the others, and in may times, raises even more questions. It is imperative that we truly understand the initial question we are trying to answer before spending efforts to answer it.

Here is a process I would follow to see if you've got the question right:

1. Repeat the question out loud (even if it is you)
2. Imagine the best and worst answers to the question
3. Would the answer have any actionable implications?
4. If not, ask the inquiror about purpose of question

Repeat steps above until everyone believes there is a question worth answering with a clear, actionable purpose that it achieves

This may seem like a lot to do, but it is a lot less effort than the wasted efforts spent on answering the wrong question (not to mention the demoralizing prospect upon finding out).

So, here is to getting the questions right!

Top 10 Ways To Scare Startup Lawyers (+VCs + Acquirors)

As I was preparing for my presentation for Founder Institute yesterday, I compiled this list over a few chuckles. Hope you also enjoy it :) 

1. Do all your legal work through DIY online forms (from formation to option grants and key contracts)
2. Get a personal injury lawyer to do your patent and trademark filings, cheaply.
3. Don't read anything about basic startup law, especially disclosure obligations, fiduciary obligations, and stock pricing rules.
4. Forget about IP strategy. If anyone asks about your views on trade secrets, talk about NAFTA!
5. Ignore regulations in your industry (especially for healthcare, life sciences, financial and legal startups)
6. Burn/shred/ignore threat letters ("nastygrams") by former employers, co-founders, contractors, users, competitors, etc.
7. Ignore all user feedback on product, from support inquiries to social media and BBB postings
8. Miss your 83(b) 30-day filing deadlines
9. If your Board forgets to grant options, go back and re-do it after the fact
10. Send an email to everyone on your contact list asking for investment in your startup

If any of the above sounds remotely like something you may have considered doing, please, please, please don't do it! You are in desperate need of immediate help, so talk to someone who knows a bit about startup law today.

Startup Legal & IP

Here is a presentation I gave to a bunch of very smart founders and entrepreneurs at Founder Institute tonight, drawing on my past 14 years of experience in Silicon Valley.  It was so fortuitous to give this presentation at Wilson Sonsini, the place where I started my Valley career as a lonely Associate in 1999.

Startup Legal & IP (July2013 Founder Institute) from Touraj Parang

Don't Waste A Mistake!

Something that a lot of good parents know is that you gotta let your kids make mistakes. In fact, that's the only way they can learn and grow as confirmed by years of research in developmental psychology (see, e.g., Remember, Mistakes are for Learning).  It's no different for adults either. Nonetheless, when we as entrerpeneurs are in the midst of startup activity, with all the confidence, optimism and forward-looking stamina in the world, we tend to try to brush the mistakes aside (if not under a rug) and move on. Who's got time for all that when you are trying to disrupt the course of mankind?

Problem is, without learning from mistakes we are bound to... you know the rest. So, how do we reconcile the desire to rapidly move forward while also learning from mistakes?

The magic solution to this dilemma is in that elusive notion of "startup culture" that I have been referring to many times in this blog. If your culture is one in which mistakes are punished and viewed as shameful and reflective of your worth as a team member, or worse, human being, good luck to you. You will be chasing your tail to infinity.

On the other hand, a culture that welcomes mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow from tends to be one in which not only innovative ideas find roots, but also find the optimal path(s) to grow among the many good and bad possibilities. Our attitude towards mistakes is what determines our ability to learn from them. Again, there is ample research data to confirm these in case you are interested (see, e.g.,  )

Here is an excerpt from Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong by Alina Tugend that captures some components of a productive, healthy attitude towards mistakes as applicable to parenting as it is to running a startup:

There are no simple fixes, but there are ways all of us can shift our thinking about mistakes. Starting with our children, we can emphasize effort and deemphasize results. We can appreciate that we -- and they -- can't be perfect, nor is it a goal we should aim for. We should strive to do our best, but if the prize is ever-elusive perfection, then the fear of failure will too often overshadow the willingness to experiment, take risks and challenge ourselves. We should be careful of the contradictory message that it's all right to make mistakes but not where it counts...

Assuming you have bought into the idea that it is better to learn from mistakes than to shove them under the rug, here are some practical steps you can take in that direction when encountering a mistake (be it a bug in your release, catching spelling errors in your expensive ad campaign, misplacing an important document, etc):

1. Always be grateful when a mistake is found. Catching it later would have been worse at the least.
2. Express your gratitude and make sure your body language confirms that.
3. Don't focus on who is responsible, but for what went wrong.
4. Shed light on the situation in a collaborative, problem solving session focused on learning
5. Brainstorm on ways to catch that kind of mistake earlier in the future
6. Focus on learnings and action plan moving forward

Some other quick, noteworthy readings on this topic include:

Fred Wilson's Don't Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste
Jessica Stillman's Don't Let a Good Mistake Go To Waste

How to Hack Your Life Into Flow

To have a productive, enriching and fulfilling life, many psychologists (as well as coaches, gurus, athletes, performers, ...) recommend incorporating as much "flow activities" into your life as possible. Flow activities are basically those in which you immerse yourself willingly and totally, and emerge from them with a continued sense of achievement (e.g., learning an instrument or new language).

To find flow in your hobbies is just a preview of what is possible. The basic concepts of flow can be (and for your sake, should be) extended to our personal as well as professional life. But how do we do that? To me, it is all about our personal approach and perspective (Weltanschauung) on life. In fact, the answer seems to be hiding in plain view, at the intersection of two questions about the most ancient human mental and physical activities:

1) Is life more like a game of chess (predictable, deterministic) or backgammon (where randomness and skill play off of each other)?

2) Is life more like a marathon (where endurance reigns supreme) or a sprint (where episodic bursts of energy need to be followed by periods of rest and rejuvenation)?

My bias and response to these questions is obvious from the diagram above (inspired by weekend conversation with a new and cherished friend, Jerzy).

What do you think? Please share your insights.

The Startup of You

Anyone interested in having a fulfilling career ought to read The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman, one of Silicon Valley's exemplary and visionary entrepreneurs behind successes such as Paypal and LinkedIn.  However, if you don't have time to ready the book, take a quick look at the following slides which do a phenomenal job of delivering the key messages in the book.  ENJOY!

Start-up of You, Visual Summary from Reid Hoffman

Yup, Culture Is Usually the Real Culprit!

It has already been a great year so far.  Many blessings on the family front have kept pace with new intellectual pursuits and personal growth opportunities, all resulting in a flurry of 24/7 excitement and activity around my neck of the woods.

Amongst all that excitement, I still couldn't help but take special personal delight in reading Brad Garlinghouse's recent post on LinkedIn, "What I got wrong in the Peanut Butter Manifesto". Brad, a visionary ex-Yahoo executive wrote the now-legendary "Peanut Butter Manifesto" six years ago, a leaked internal memo in which he pointed out "lack of focus, accountability and decisiveness" as Yahoo's critical problems at that point. He aptly prophesied Yahoo's talent exodus and steady subsequent decline in relevance in the world (until Marissa Mayer).

Now, with the benefit of hindsight and reflecting on his role as the chief executive of YouSendIt, Brad has a revised perspective. Namely, he is now convinced that the problems he pointed at Yahoo were mostly symptoms of a much deeper ailment, one that we could summarize as lack of an entrepreneurial culture:

[Yahoo's] core culture no longer encouraged and celebrated innovation with the same zest and ardent ambition to change the world—too often this had been displaced by half-hearted maintenance of the status quo.

...Great products don’t come out of thin air. They are an outcome of environments where innovation can thrive and talented people are encouraged to be bold.

Sure, one-hit wonders can happen anywhere, but companies that stand the test of time all recognize a fundamental truth: great people build great products and great people gravitate towards great company cultures. The startup culture that Steve Jobs created at Apple to transform a declining computer manufacturer into the creator of era-defining products is an obvious example.

...If a business has to be told that it needs more focus, accountability and decisiveness, there is a bigger problem at hand. Truly successful businesses encourage these qualities innately by creating and fostering a culture that inspires each individual to perform at their peak and rewards passion and results without peanut buttering the end of year bonus.

As I had previously written, the right culture within your organization serves as a success accelerant. The existence of an innovative entreprepeneurial culture is as electrifyingly palpable as its lack is stultifying and stale. But it does not come about by accident. It requires deliberate, relentless acts by the founding team. And it leaves its fingerprint throughout the organization, from the arrangement of desks, to employment policies, perks and benefits, allowed play time, hours worked, mission statement, and even the actual product(s) produced.

As founders, what are some of the things you do to maintain the entrepeneurial culture within your startup? How has that culture helped you achieve your goals?