Be A Mule

Recently, I spoke to a entrepreneurship class at UCF. I decided early that I wasn't interested in speaking about the typical stuff but more interested in talking about the stuff you don't find in text books. Here is what I told this class of 40 people.

I personally believe a person is born with the seeds of entrepreneurship and through experience or circumstances those seeds flourish or stay dormant. Fundamentally, you have to be a person who's not adverse to risk, constantly looking to buck the system, don't care about becoming a millionaire, stubborn, and is okay with walking onto the alter of innovation and getting sacrificed for the greater good. The fact is, no matter how hard I try, I'll never be an NBA All star and I'm okay with that. I wasn't born 6'6" with a wicked jump shot and 360 "in yo face" dunking skills. What I was born with is the stuff that makes it very feasible for me to become a tech entrepreneur All Star.

The reality is 95% of all startups fail - numbers don't lie - so you have to be pretty nuts to risk everything knowing the odds of failing are pretty high. To walk the entrepreneurial journey is 1/3 Science, 1/3 Art and 1/3 Personal Delusion. You have to follow a scientific process of vetting your idea, building, testing, and finding the right product market fit. It takes art to convince people to follow and invest in you. It also, takes art to build something great out of crappy and limited resources. Last, to believe you can bring timing, networks and people together with the thought you can overcome unforeseen events, biases, mindsets, bad days, good days, Harvard graduates thinking about your idea, trust fund kids with more money and simultaneously control the sun and cars around you is pretty freaking delusional.

Emotionally, starting a business is draining. The focus and beat downs required are on an epic level. Some morning you're on top of the world and other mornings you're crying your ass off in bed. There's the constant presence of loneliness, fear, being out of control and panic that you have to wrestle with. Most people don't understand what this feels like to constantly live on a potentially disastrous edge. It reminds me of the car hanging off the cliff that's kept in balance because there's a little dog standing on the hood. Unfortunately, you can't control the dog and if it decides to jump off, for whatever reason, you're screwed. All you can do is hope the dog stays on the hood long enough for your butt to get out of the car. Now imagine having to go through this every day and you start to see how exhausting entrepreneurship can get.

Life get's really simple for an entrepreneur - shit either matters or it doesn't. So you find yourself making decisions really quick because any extra time spent on crap that doesn't matter is like spending extra time sitting in the car hanging off the cliff with the dog on the hood. Money, resources, emotions, and time are really tight thus, you're not interested in wasting anything. Should I brush my hair? Nah! Should I shave? Nah! Should I worry about what to wear? Nah! Should I care about American Idol? Nope! Should I care about the Kardashian's or Kanye West? Heck no! I'm not saying an entrepreneur should walk around disheveled and not caring. What I'm saying is the only things  an entrepreneur should spend time on are things that make them become more focused, move the needle, and get their butts out of the car hanging off the cliff with the dog on the hood a lot faster. To do this, you have to keep life simple.

It's amazing how resourceful you get with scarcity. Scarcity allows an entrepreneur to pull off some pretty dope magic tricks. Scarcity makes you really dig down and get extremely innovative about how you're going to use the few chips that remain on your table. When people have an abundance of anything, they waste it and efficiency goes out the window. Scarcity makes you hustle harder and it's the hustle that allows you to be more creative and efficient about getting to point B faster than your competitor. I've never been more broke in my life but at the same time the magic tricks that I'm pulling off in my brokeness are pretty freaking dope and amazing!

Critics and haters are part of the startup game. Last week, I had a VC criticize our investor deck which we spent hours preparing and reviewing with some of the most brilliant minds in the startup game. This VC said our deck wasn't "Primetime" and it looked like we spent 10 minutes on it! Just for jokes, I asked him what was "Primetime" and this dude sends over a 28 page deck with 16 point font and distorted Microsoft clip art all over it. I looked at it, laughed, push the delete button and 30 minutes later presented our Non "Primetime" deck to a tier 1 investor who felt it was compelling, concise and articulated our vision well. The point is, people are going to hate and criticize, so learn to deal with it effectively. Your goal is to put nonproductive things in the trash can, keep things moving and not screw up your next opportunity because you're wasting energy on an event that just doesn't matter.

Staying spiritually, mentally and physically healthy is important during the startup process Take a break and go to church, run the block, drink with friends or listen to Bob Dylan. This is a marathon, so treat it that way. Don't be the guy or gal, who burns out on mile nine because they came out the gate like a puma. If you're going to enter the race, I suggest you turn yourself into a mule. Yeah, a mule! Mules are ugly little suckers but you can't deny they're tough, steady, dependable and always get where they need to go no matter how rough the terrain. The secret to being a great mule is to watch how they chill out when not working. When relaxing, mules tend to stand around, look dumb, eat grass and drink water but when it's time to work, they're always ready to get it done.

Finding your brick is important. Your brick is the person or entity who won't make things to heavy on you but will sit on your shoulder and apply constant pressure, hold things down, turn into a weapon when you need defense, and weather every storm that comes your way. Find your brick. My brick is God.

Failure is awesome so embrace it. Let me highlight how failure is awesome for every one. You can confidently eat the fruit and vegetables in a grocery store because some poor dope thousands of years ago died eating the wrong fruits and vegetables. The village won because  they learned what vegetable not to eat after seeing this fellow die in front of them and the poor dope won because he went to heaven early where he was able to eat whatever the heck he wanted. So when you fail, everyone wins, including you! Embrace failure because it's awesome.

In the end, you have to find your passion. Living in your passion allows you to deal with the tough things that come with every journey. Whether it's a new business, being a wife or husband, your career, or volunteering, be passionate about it. Swing for the fences, enjoy and grow in times of scarcity, blow off the haters, keep balanced and simple, stay focused, embrace failure and become the mule.

Kyle Christian Steele