#50 - People
Highlights, others, and in defence of lounging
I’m rubbish at a lot of things.
…
You’re probably waiting for the “but”. There is no “but”.
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Highlights
The best things we managed this year are all to do with people. In no particular order:
We found a great person to run operations.
We found someone great to handle land.
We found someone great to build the cabins.
We had some wonderful people help out on fundraising.
We didn’t get in their way (too much.)
People are everything. The key to making this a success, as far as I can tell, is finding the right people and giving them what they need. That’s it.
With the right people in I’m best off getting out of the way. My time is better spent loafing around writing silly newsletters so that the adults can make it all happen.
Sounds good to me.
Others
I’m currently reading the Starbucks story, by its founder Howard Schultz. Quite the journey to become the behemoth they are today. There’s one theme that pops up time and time again. They found the right person to level-up.
The same message appeared in a click-bait Medium article I read recently. It talked about things second time founders do differently. Top of the list was they use other people. They find the right people to solve the problems. On the contrary first time founders tend to try and solve everything themselves. When they hire, it’s someone junior who can act as an extension of themselves.
Luckily Ben and I, although first time founders, saw this first hand at our previous startup. We were those junior hires in question. I can’t speak for Ben- he’s always been great at making stuff happen- but I was useless. How I didn’t get fired remains a mystery to all involved.
The reason this all matters is because the results are not marginal. It’s not about 10% better. They’re orders of magnitude better. For many challenges facing a startup a star person could do a 10-100 times better job than an average one.
The quality of people compounds. Great people get great results, and attract more great people. The early days are far more important than one might think. You’re setting the pace.
In Defence of Loafing
If you’ve read this far you may have come to the conclusion that I’m rather a waste of space. True on some level. But grant me the chance to defend my hours of loafing and writing nonsense.
Every startup problem, give or take, is a communication problem: two people weren’t on the same page. When you’re just two Founders the whole company is easy to keep in sync. One conversation and everyone (both of you) understands everyone else.
Therefore, one of the biggest challenges is this communication piece. How do you give people the information they need?
With the right people on the bus my job becomes pretty simple: give them what they need, and get out of their way. If I can get the right information to the right people then we’ll be ok. If it’s stuck with me, we’re toast.
People want to help. But they need to know what they’re helping with, and why. This newsletter. Our monthly investor update. Even stupid posts on Linkedin. They all help keep great people in the loop. Get enough great people in the loop and magic happens. It’s that simple.
My Week in Books📚
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
A wonderful book. What would happen if we could go back and address our regrets? if we could make a different choice. The grass is always greener. This book highlights that brilliantly and is a beautiful lesson in appreciating what we have.
I’ll be updating the books I’ve read this year here. Any recommendations? Let me know!
A Final Thought 💡
“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”
- Anton Chekhov