You should start a company

Over the past ~7 years, I’ve talked with friends who’ve built impressive careers yet feel something is missing. They are restless for meaningful work that builds legacy and leaves a better world for their children. Most times, I advise them to start a company. Recently, I shared my journey during TechWeek and received great feedback. I decided to share more broadly.

Here’s a link to my talk

The Philosophy

In an age of moral drift and overstretched governments, founders have an unprecedented leadership opportunity: to mobilize complex stakeholders behind the delivery of enduring market solutions to billions of underserved people.

So, How Does One Start A Company?

Here is my four step process.

1. What bothers you?
The causes we care about choose us and won’t let go until we take responsibility. Our family values, words that resonate deeply, our experiences, are painting a latticework. To unlock clarity and precision, dig into:

• Your origin story explains why what matters truly matters and lends you the authority to build.

• A grasp of your worldview, how you believe the world ought to work, forms a foundation to engage with reality.

• Your wish list, your answer to what’s missing that’d make the world meaningfully better, sparks purpose, inspires imagination, and drives committed action.

 2. What are you good at?
Many of us never stop to define what we do well and why. Such knowledge is vital for business design and team building. Here’s where to look:

• Your current job is a goldmine for unconventional insight. For example, after spending 15 years at Amazon, Wayne, a good friend, realized his longevity was due to a cultural fit with his quirky personality. This has led him to start building a company to help neurodivergent candidates thrive in the workplace.

• Feedback from career coaches or structured exercises with trusted friends can provide blunt, actionable insight.

• Cover the base by investing to learn communication, leading people, and financial statements.

 3. Where is the opening?
A winning idea combines what you care about and what you are good at. Get specific:

• A white space: What is a real, unaddressed problem impacting many people in your area of responsibility? What is your proposed solution?

• Economic proposition: Tie your solution to a clear value proposition for customers and your capital providers. And think carefully about distribution.

• Infrastructure and roadmap: Start to define a vision/BHAG, a mission/mandate, and the culture/means to pursue the opening.

4. Are you prepared?
Three years after founding Fairbridge, I hit a wall. The new project adrenaline suddenly dried up and I found myself depleted, discouraged. From the other side of that slump, here’s what I wish I had done differently:

• Regret vs. Opportunity: I was sprinting, fueled by regret and a desire to make up for lost time rather than embracing the privilege to channel strong conviction through my capability and life experiences.

• Self-awareness vs. Self-improvement: Initially, I fell into the trap of beating myself up for not meeting self-imposed impossible standards. Today, a strong command of my strenghts helps me to fill the gaps through team and structures with self-confidence.

• Pacing vs. Speed: I wanted to do it all immediately and eventually ran out of runway—emotional, physical, financial. Everything takes at least twice as long and it’s vital to slow down, build reserves, replenish, survive. The secret…community.

Why All This Matters

We need many many more of them, and they need guidance because:

• High opportunity cost: Brilliant operators constantly receive lucrative, tempting offers that don’t always align with deeper purpose.

• Capital oversupply: There are many private markets out there. Clarity of purpose makes it easier to find values-aligned investors.

• Compounding: Conviction and clarity in pursuit of purpose provide the stamina to stick with it for the long haul. The results of patient application can be astonishingly transformational.

When you get a chance please read Bo Burlingham’s book Small Giants. Ho Nam put me onto it a few years ago. I read it often and it captures the essence of my vision for the world.

**For aspiring mission-driven founders, I’m here for you. Fairbridge aspires to be the earliest partner of choice for founders driving social progress 💚