Why Start-Up Leadership Isn’t for Everyone

By Carl Hicks Jr., COO, Earth Class Mail

Participating in MOJO HD TV show Start-Up Junkies™ was a unique experience for our company. When we started out, there was concern that the producers would either overemphasize the fun and excitement or underemphasize the constant risks and stresses of start-up life. In the end, I think they probably struck a reasonable balance between the light and the dark sides, with perhaps a little too much invented drama -– but hey, television has to be made interesting or no one will watch it. It’s hard to make our workaday reality of endless meetings and emails compelling for television viewers, so hats off to the producers for finding a way to make the show interesting.

We’ve received many fan letters from viewers, usually falling into one of two categories: A) I’m doing a start-up now or have done start-ups before and love how your show illustrates what that’s really like, or B) I’ve never done a start-up but it looks like so much fun compared to the big company scene that I’m itching to go start one. This blog entry is for the folks who might fall in the latter camp.

Assuming that anyone could thrive in a start-up environment is like assuming that everyone who enlists in the Army will qualify for Special Forces. It is one thing to work at a start-up… that just takes a certain tolerance for financial risk, long hours and a highly ambiguous conception of what needs to get done each new day. The reality is that most people aren’t cut out for start-ups, even if they think they are. It is another thing altogether to lead a start-up to success, and a whole other thing again to lead it through to each consecutive inflection point of growth.

May 16, 2008 | Filed Under Start-Up Junkies | Leave a Comment