Scott Barstow writes a blog series focused on helping untechnical founders successfully start and launch technology companies without lighting their money on fire. He is a venture partner at Sovereign’s Capital and an adviser to multiple startups in Raleigh-Durham and elsewhere. Here, he shares with Startup Southerner about timing of committing to the single entrepreneurial path:
There’s a key moment in every successful company’s formation where you and your co-founders agree to set everything else aside and just work on the idea in front of you.
As Brian Dally, CEO of Groundfloor said in a recent interview with me on my podcast:
“I think the moment that most people have to get to… I think it’s a really hard moment…You have to decide as co-founders to put your pencils down on other projects and just do the project that you’re working on. The problem is, most people think it works the other way, that ‘You know what I’m going to work on this part time, and we both are, and once we see that we get a little traction, or once we get that first customer or once we have a little revenue or have that first investor, then we’ll do it ourselves full time.’ That’s not how it works. The only way to create equity value at the beginning is commitment. That’s all there is.”
This doesn’t mean that you jump into something foolishly. Brian described spending 4-5 months with his co-founder really digging into the idea and seeing how they would work together.
There comes a time, however, when you have to put your pencils down and commit to the path. The truth here is that you’ll never know what you’ve got until you give it all you’ve got.
So much easier said than done.