“No plan ever survives its first encounter with the enemy.”

Douglas MacArthur

US general in WW II

from:  http://www.getting-to-plan-b.com/Documents/ChangeThis.pdf

Es muy difícil montar una empresa de un éxito sustancial y sostenido en solitario.

Muchas veces en los medios de comunicación, en libros y películas y en general en la conciencia popular existe el mito del héroe individual, en este caso el mito del emprendedor individual, sólo ante el peligro, capaz de hacer frente a cualquier enemigo.

Este tópico no se sostiene en la realidad. Por nombrar algunos ejemplos famosos: Steve Jobs se apoyo en Wozniak para crear el primer Mac, Bill Gates no sería el hombre más rico del planeta de no ser por la ayuda de Paul Allen, Larry tuvo a Sergei en Google y Yang a Filo en Yahoo, Hewlett a Packard, etc… (y podría seguir un buen rato, pero creo que el punto está claro).

A nivel personal he visto bastantes ejemplos de “emprendedores solitarios” a mi alrededor, cuya “soledad” venía dada por diferentes razones y circunstancias y cuyas empresas tenían más o menos beneficios y empleados. Sin embargo, en la mayoría de estas empresas, pese a ser los emprendedores trabajadores incansables, se estancaban en una espiral negativa o circulo vicioso que perjudicaba a todo el equipo creando un ambiente de estrés y dificultando la viabilidad a largo plazo.

Por mi experiencia las start-ups con éxito sustancial y sostenido parten al menos de un duo catalizador, un ying y un yang complementarios, que son clave para enfrentarse a los retos de una nueva empresa: el visionario y el ejecutor.

El visionario

El visionario es una persona conceptual, orientada al futuro, que disfruta de visualizar lo que aún no existe. Es una persona con una fuerte determinación a cambiar el status quo, dado que las opciones que visualiza harían el mundo mejor.

El ejecutor

El ejecutor es una persona pragmática/realista, orientada al día a día y que tiene muy claro lo que hace falta para llevar a la práctica cualquier proyecto. Es una persona muy responsable, que hace que las cosas funcionen bien y en tiempo/presupuesto.

Ying y Yang – partes de un puzzle conjunto

El ejecutor y el soñador son piezas indispensables del puzzle emprendedor, con independencia de sus diferencias de edad/experiencia en la industria o conocimientos técnicos.

Sin el visionario el ejecutor muchas veces trabaja en las oportunidades equivocadas (al menos subóptimas) o se queda estancado, sin la falta de flexibilidad y cambios de rumbo innovadores que caracterizan al visionario.

Sin el ejecutor, los planes del visionario se quedan en el cuento de la lechera. Grandes visiones, ideas rompedoras, pero al visionario le cuesta terminar los detalles y le aburre coordinar operaciones y sin un ejecutor a su lado no terminan de cuajar sus visiones.

Disclaimer: Es importante comentar que no quiero decir con todo esto que:

- hagan falta sólo 2 fundadores, ya que este dúo es sólo el núcleo necesario (ver futuro post sobre el dream team),

- ni tampoco que el ejecutor no pueda ser un empleado de alta confianza y capacidad que complemente a un fundador visionario por ejemplo (eso es un tema de reparto de equity).

- tampoco quiero transmitir una versión simplificada de las personas que forman parte del equipo (la realidad es más compleja – ver post futuro sobre teoría de la personalidad)

+15 Startup Commandments Web 2.0

1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.
2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.
3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.
4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.
5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.
6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.
7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.
8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).
9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.
10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.
11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.
12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?
13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?
14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.
15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application. - Mark Fletcher ( http://www.startupping.com/ )~Founder of Bloglines.com 

Reconnecting on LinkedIn with old contacts from my time at OcioJoven I found one of them working at Openbravo, a very interesting company, for 2 reasons:

1) ERPs are the next important frontier for opensource

Opensource has revolutionized many segments of IT in the last 10 years, ERP is probably one of the last big profit pools that still waits for its large opensource paladin (like LINUX, MySQL, Apache, php, sugarcrm etc…. in their segments).

Openbravo has achieved the number 1 spot on largest opensource directory SourceForge among 130.000 other projects!!! (although only temporarily)

They were featured in Spain’s largest newspaper this weekend: http://www.elpais.es/articulo/red/Openbravo/alcanza/63/000/descargas/sistema/gestion/empresarial/elpcibred/20061109elpcibenr_3/Tes/

2) Spanish technology projects with global ambitions and opportunities are quite rare

The other day I was discussing this with our old sys admin from OcioJoven. He was telling me how Spain is always the worst in EU in terms of tech adoption and how Spanish start-ups have bad access to capital and difficult exit paths. I was trying to put a positive light on Spanish inventiveness and how the younger generation is taking up mobiles or IM, but I guess he is right, and Spain is not the optimal environment for tech startups.

There are only a few notable exceptions (Panda Antivirus, Anyware, FON, etc.) but Spain needs more initiatives like this to avoid commoditization in the global marketplace.

Good luck to this Spanish technology project!

I am a fan of Richard Branson (I actually once worked at the 100-people Virgin HQ in Notting Hill during an MBA project). His innovating-underdog attitude to business is always refreshing and my experience with Virgin products while living in the UK always met high expectations (Virgin Mobile, Virgin ISP, Virgin Atlantic).

Now read this recent interview

Very interesting promise: Within 1 year Virgin Fuel will be available and work for Virgin’s transportation vehicles at a lower-than-gasoline cost. Wow! Ties in excellently with a previous Vinod Khosla post.
“It will be called Virgin Fuel, yes! It’s not ethanol-based as such, but it’ll be a clean fuel. And if we’ve got it right, it could be a very important breakthrough. We think this fuel will work in cars and trucks and trains within a year.”
I specially liked Branson’s phrase which exactly reflects how I think about entrepreneurs as wire balancing artists, permanently at risk following a thin line to success.

“There is a very, very thin dividing line between survival and failure. You’ve just got to fight and fight and fight and fight to survive.”

And also this other quote about how following your passion it the key to start-up success (and not exclusively making tons of money)

“Ideally, since 80 percent of your life is spent working, you should start your business around something that is a passion of yours. If you’re into kite-surfing and you want to become an entrepreneur, do it with kite-surfing.”

The always amazing Vinod Khosla has an excellent video on Biofuels you should check if you are interested in new trends and technological progress.

Vinod (check his CV) is one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and long-time partner at the legendary Kleiner Perkins and has recently started his own VC fund called Khosla Ventures.

He basically argues that Biofuels will be the next source of energy because they are much better on so many levels:

- Much greener, reducing CO2 emissions

- Geopolitically more stable as it would reduce dependency on Middle-East countries

- Cheaper, as production costs are lower

- Easy to switch as it would not require important changes (as opposed to hydrogen)

- Tested, as Biofuels are already 70% of the fuel used in Brazil

His arguments sound very compelling to my logic mind so I have tried to find counterarguments, which there are more than enough specially attacking Vinod’s assumed energy efficiency of biofuels.

All in all my conclusion is there is still a lot of controversy around our future energy (I went to an interesting hydrogen debate at LBS 15 months ago), and only time will tell how our children will put in the tanks of their cars…

Stay tuned