For a few months now I’ve been involved with a new-start business accelerator, offering advice and support to entrepreneurs near the beginning of their start-up journey. It’s a wonderful pool to jump into – full of enthusiasm, open-mindedness, great ideas and never-say-die spirit.
The folks who are fortunate to be in the accelerator receive waves of expert advice, on everything from block-chain security to how to persuade investors to part with their money. It’s really important that entrepreneurs can find this kind of support – for as anyone who has travelled this route will tell you, it’s tough. No income. Capricious clients. Constantly moving goalposts. Big gaps in business-knowledge. Long hours. No time for family or friends. And at the end, no guarantee of a successful outcome. It’s as if someone designed a laboratory experiment to test the variables for psychological stress, then turned them all up full. Any entrepreneurs among you who read my earlier post about The Hero’s Journey may have experienced a twinge of recognition. I can safely say the start-up world is full of new-fledged heroes.
But why on earth does anyone do this? Surely the sane thing is to find a steady job and go home to family or friends and the TV every evening? What motivates anyone to put themselves through this emotional wringer?
I ran a small online survey with the last cohort in the accelerator, looking for answers to that very question. The results took me by surprise.
I asked my participants to rank ten different potential motivators on a scale from “not at all motivating” to “highly motivating”. The first surprise was that “Money” and “Status” received the lowest scores of anything in the list. Only 24% considered these two to be significant motivators. Somewhere in the middle range (picked as highly motivating by around 50%) came "support from others" – from colleagues, family, professionals in the accelerator, and investors. But what came out, very strongly, as the top motivators blew me away. 86% said they were highly motivated by "wanting to change the world in a positive way". 93% said they were motivated by "giving my clients something they really need". And 93% said they were driven by "my vision for the company".
This was a small and localised survey, and I don’t want to make over-ambitious claims for it. But something here rings true. OK, a decent income and some status are great to have. If we were given a yes/no choice few of us would say no to either. And yet for most of us money and status don’t really grab us in a deep and meaningful way. They may represent security, but they don’t represent passion – the driving force from the heart or the gut that gives real meaning to our lives, that can drive a life’s purpose.
That’s where “the vision thing” really kicks-in. And that's why "changing the world", or "making lives better" are right up there in the list of humanly resonant goals. Entrepreneurship can be one hell of a difficult journey. But in the light of this kind of vision we can begin to understand why it’s so compelling.
So here’s a salute to all you new-start business heroes. Shine on! Keep sight of your vision. Keep on changing the world!
