Yesterday I gave a guest lecture to a product design class for entrepreneur minors about well.. fear, specifically in regards to startups, and the fears that consume the people that dare to create them.

I exposed 5 primal fears that I feel occur in startup entrepreneurs.  They are: desire, doubt, debate, destroy, and dread.  So why talk about fear?  Because its an underlying thread that is ever present, attacks, consumes and often destroys entrepreneurs.  Yet its a rarely discussed or covered topic really- we’re all so happy about starting, luckily we’re still frighteningly human, and oh so fragile.

Desire is the first fear that entrepreneurs feel.  Its that undeniable urge, that all consuming aspect that you are right.  You want this thing so bad, you see it, you longingly want this reality to be here, now, true.  Our desire in creating next is ultra powerful and massively destructive.  Desire fuels light and the dark on both your shoulders- the angel and the devil, and well your big idea in the mix.  Its a foundational fear, special and primal to you, to your mission, to your quest.  To mitigate this fear is to listen to data, listen to reason, to observe the pattern outside yourself.  Desire can be timely or deadly.

Is the idea right?  Is the product correct?  Is the prototype good enough?  Are my customers right?  Do i have the proper product fit?  Am I in the right city?  Right region?  Right partner, investor, should I be listening to dan ramble?  Is this idea gonna fly?  Should I be working instead?  Doubt is the second sort of primal foundational fear, its the little person inside freaking out, all the time.  While Desire drags you into the bar, Doubt is freaking out over the bar tab.  Mitigating doubt takes practice, and a building of ones confidence through practice and learned experience.  The more you do, the more you practice, the less doubt impacts you in my opinion.  Conviction is the spear of destiny to doubt, you can slice through doubt in a second, you believe, nothing else matters- you could say thats desire talking but, not always true.  Doubt is very much, in you.

Debate is likely the most destructive of the five fears i’m listing.  Debate is often the source of new data, new learnings, or pokes and prods to try something new, but more so debate is everyone and everything coming down on you.  Its external forces causing your desire to go on the offensive and ramps up your doubt engine like mad.  Debate is largely untimely, meaning 9 out of 10 debates do you no good.  Humans are hard wired to debate, to critique, we are walking streams of opinions.  Debate is a foundation for garbage in garbage out meaning if you start the debate on less than favorable footing, you’re likely to get a less than favorable output, which feeds into your doubt and can alter company, product, personal product or direction.  Columbus loves to debate.  Everyone in Columbus is an armchair quarterback and as much as we don’t want it, we do, because we want connection, we need conversation, we can’t do this grand thing in a vacuum, at least not all the ideas.

To destroy is to start to turn on each other, early on, often before the biz is real, before a prototype exists, etc.  The destruction of those around you, partners, friends, family, you will do it.  You will choose, you will destroy.  I found it oddly whimsical that just 1hr after my talk I caught up a past attendee of Startup Weekend, who was feeling the destroy aspects of a startup team imploding before investment, before product, before real adoption.  Destroy is the gateway drug or possibly the side effect of micromanagement.  Desire fights for your position, while doubt builds the case and ultimately green lights destruction.

I always recall my early days at TCO where I would meet with many local entrepreneurs, and recall one of them telling me “i got 8 months.. and then i’m dead.”  The sense of dread was completely transparent to me.  He knew it, he saw the fate that was to be.  When startups run out of cash, they often, if not always, die.  He had 8 months of cash and then, dead.  Taking cash often creates dread.  There’s alot of romancing the stone happening in the startup scene, the thrill of manifesting an idea out of thin air is a rush, then building a proto, then playing the part all the way up to the guy or gal that is willing to give you coin at the altar, and of course thats your moment, your window, your party, and many feel the dread as soon as they take it, as if everything before that was fun, but now, its serious, you owe.  Dread manifests itself in other ways as well, product iterations aren’t always fun, interacting with others, isn’t always fun, raising money- talk to 10 entrepreneurs and get taste for what its like to split yourself in half, spending 8 hour days on building a product, managing people, getting customers, and then another 8 hours a day raising money, getting rejected or jumping through a few dozen hoops.  This is the world.

So the first half of the talk was fears, and then I broke into 2 concepts I feel help address, tackle and defeat or disarm those fears- intrinsic momentum and hustle.  To me intrinsic momentum a natural rolling state of believability.  Its already apparent, obvious.  I feel most great opportunities are simply leveraging the obvious, cashing in on the intrinsic momentum already in play.

Twitch is an example of intrinsic momentum to me.  Gamers shared their games on youtube long before twitch came along.  In the observation of this, justintv pivoted to cater to this already evolving, present, and growing audience.  The product was straightforward, obvious, the customers were already there.  They simply made it better.

Finding ideas that roll, they stick, they are obvious, perhaps not tech enabled yet, but obvious.  Guiding user behavior not changing it, huge win material.  Especially for a non-resilient first time entrepreneur.  Sure once your conviction engine is online 24/7, go for that ground breaking total behavior change idea, you’ll need the energy and the money to do it.  Intrinsic momentum ideas and concepts often harbor super fans, twitch is another great example of finding and leveraging super fans.  Super fans, super users, like employees whom you never pay – are the gods of your service, they are more powerful than any ad campaign.  Momentum gives you a vehicle for noise, and noise and can be leveraged by hustle.

I ended the talk on hustle, the definitive metric that separates entrepreneurs.  A bad idea with hustle can increase the opportunities to be great, while a great idea with lack of hustle can equally miss or even erode opportunities and fail.

Following the talk I received alot of questions, how to raise money, what does Columbus offer young entrepreneurs, the allure and pull of the valley, and more.

Its always fun to talk to students, next week I have the privilege to speak to a Buckeye Leadership class on pitching a concept.    I’m in the height of lecture madness, one talk a week from now till mid November.  Good times!  You can find my FEAR talk, here on slideshare along with our SHOP prototype paper I use with students, faculty, and staff to ideate a concept.