Real Entrepreneurs & Real Visions

It’s funny what can happen to an entrepreneur as time passes. My first encounter with most entrepreneurs is pretty exciting. They pitch their vision to me and tell me about how they’re going to change the world. Independent of what their vision is, I love this attitude, and I consider this mindset an absolute requirement for anyone who has a chance of succeeding.

Fast forward six months, a year, three years, and you’ll almost always see a major transformation. If successful, the entrepreneur usually emits a confidence in their abilities and optimism in their vision. If they’re not really that successful, which is the case for most entrepreneurs, they flip a mental switch and begin to reek of unmistakable complacency and mild optimism for a lukewarm vision. Gone is the vision, reality has set in.

One might think that this gradual fatalism is caused by the bitter realities of entrepreneurship and the infinite challenges of creating value, but I think it is just the opposite. I think that most downtrodden entrepreneurs get that way because they allow reality to tarnish their vision, or, better yet, they think that their original vision was gospel. They miss the most critical point about entrepreneurship in that real entrepreneurs never stop finding new ways to create value.

Imagine now the entrepreneur whose vision is still vibrant, despite numberless revisions, and is still pitching something that they believe in and that makes me believe in them. I don’t care if they’ve changed their mind a million times, failed miserably, or if their plan has huge holes in it—I want to invest in this person. I want to invest in someone with a half-decent plan and a true belief that they can do it. I want to invest in someone who never stops being an entrepreneur in the purest sense and keeps the vision alive.

Next time you want to test an entrepreneur, ask them what keeps them up at night. If they’re beaten up by the cruel world, they’ll answer by telling you that they worry about problems. If, on the other hand, they continue to reinvent themselves and their company, they’ll answer you by telling you that they stay up at night thinking about how they’re going to capture the next big opportunity.