The Rider Will Always Win #socent
Perhaps you’ve heard this story before, so bare with me. A man was once granted one wish by a genie. He wished to see Heaven and Hell. The genie showed him two doors. He asked the man to open the first door to see Hell. It was a beautiful room that sparkled with gold and in the middle of the room was a table with a feast fit for a king. However all of the silverware was 6 feet long and everyone sitting at the table looked sickly and ill as if they were withering away. They could not feed themselves with such long silverware. Disgusted, the man turned away and asked the genie to now see Heaven. The genie pointed to the other door and the man opened it with haste. To his astonishment, the room looked the exact same, with the same feast and the same silverware, however the people looked fat and happy and full. He turned to the genie and said, “I don’t understand. The two rooms are identical but one is full of ugly, sickly beings and the other is full of beautiful, happy people?” The genie replied, “In the first room no one speaks to each other and they are selfish trying to hoard the feast to themselves. In the second room, they have learned to feed each other.” This idea explains perfectly the idea of “fit” when investors are assessing which social entrepreneurs they will be investing in.
Just as every business idea is different, so is every entrepreneur. For every product, every service, and every market, there are different sets of circumstances that lead to ultimate success. Different markets call for different company cultures and values in order to triumph. These are parts of the company that are generally created by the founding team. In fact, the company values are often a reflection of the founding teams’ values, and the culture of the company an expression of the beliefs of that team of how the business should be run. Thus, the investor needs to be able to not only assess the social business idea and the team, but the possibility of success that team has in the sought after market. Although one single candidate type cannot be perfect for all investments, investors generally almost always admire certain characteristics:
- Passion
- Brains, guts, and vision of the leader
- Coach-ability
- Judgment
- Charisma
- Commitment
- Empathy
- Integrity
- Optimism
As we have all undoubtedly seen before, business plans are a constantly evolving beast. They never appear as we first picture them too. There are a million business plan templates to help you write your own business plan, probably one to match each of the equally large number of great business ideas that are born every day. The key to unlocking the potential of each of these ideas though, lies with the entrepreneurial team behind it. Without a team in place that can see the changes that need to be made to the product/service, the process, or even the changes happening in the marketplace, it will be impossible to remold the social venture plan into one that breed’s success. When deciding what’s more important in terms of “the Horse or the Rider,” the Rider will always win out, as it is the Rider that trains the horse and makes the judgment calls on the track. There are many obstacles along the race that require much more complex solutions than just being the fastest and most passionate. When is the best time to make a move to pass a competitor? What adjustments need to be made when the weather turns? And even when is it time to try entering a different race? These are questions whose answers are vital to the success of the race, and only the Rider can answer them.
Of course it is always the case that entrepreneurs wish to be profitable. However by profitable, I am not only referring to the amount of revenue minus costs that their firm accrues, but by the measures of success the entrepreneur has set forth before executing the social venture. If the vision is strong and the entrepreneurial team carries out their business plan from an objective view, making changes when needed and shifting into markets best suited for the venture, then they should rest easy that high revenues will not be far behind. No entrepreneur puts the high stress on his or her self that is involved with the creation of a new venture without the basic motivation to see it succeed and become profitable. Therefore it would be foolish to think that “profitability” is the most important motivation of any entrepreneur. It instead should be a mutually understood concept by both the founder and the investor.
A friend of mine once told me that passion is the fire that drives success. Without fire the water would never boil. That is why this is the first characteristic looked for by most investors. This however, cannot be the driving factor in choosing to make an investment in the entrepreneur. Every entrepreneur has different ideas, plans, goals, and visions. These all create their motivations for success. Some want to be rich, some believe their idea solves a vital problem in the world, and some even just like the idea of being successful. As an artist delicately paints a blank canvas to show the world the picture in their head, so too must an entrepreneur be able to paint his business model in the form of his vision. Thus, the most important motivation an entrepreneur must possess is the drive to share their vision and the ability to motivate others to follow it.



