10 3 / 2010
Stress Training And Founders Not Making The Cut
“Pain is weakness leaving the body, provided that the pain inflicted is small enough that you can handle it and grow from it, emotionally or physically.” ~ US Marine Corps
You can learn all the knowledge from all the books in the world but it’s all useless if you can’t remember or apply it when you get punch in the face (or some other type of pressure situation). This true whether you are a black belt Jiu Jitsu guy fighting Mixed Martial Arts for the first time or a B school graduate working in a emerging market. Books can never give you live stress test conditioning.
When we trained mixed martial arts; we did a lot of sparring and a lot on the mat. It was alive training. Repetition of techniques for memorization is just useless, because you never know how the other person would react. So we train for worst case scenario such as laying on your back while having somebody rain down punches in bunches on you. You learn real quick to cover yourself. You also learn how to relax in the situation, not be scared, see things coming, literally roll with the punches. You then start seeing the opponent as puzzles, where you need to break things in to manageable steps to solve the problem. Position before submission.
For awhile they were the bane of my existence, I think one of the most valuable lessons I got from the VC’s is the stress test they put me under before. Talent plus some luck will equal success. But even if you’re talented, but there’s no luck (or sucky market), success doesn’t come easy or at all, so how do you survive till luck does come around? I run content sites and not web apps/services; so we have a much larger staff and burn rate compared to other web start ups. So in down turn economy, companies really have to find ways to cut costs and grow stronger. There some months that the investors were really just ratchet down on funding. It forced me to find really creative ways to make sure we cover our overhead and acquire new users without marketing spend. It also forced me to decide between letting go a close friend or laying off 9 lower level employees who were doing a great job. I chose letting my friend based on utilitarian principles. I also had to cut other performing staff as the position was no longer needed. Now, if I do have to lay off people, I can pull the trigger without hesitation because I started to become numb to it all. Not to say doing so now still wouldn’t be stressful and or it’s a fun activity. But if I never went through stress tests; I may have made the wrong decisions on choosing people as individuals over making the business survive. How to lay off people in dignified ways was never taught in school.
Going through the stress tests will also make it easier for myself should I need to sacrifice myself for the business or realize that it’s better for me to chase new opportunities. Steve Blank writes an great blog entry on when start up founders gets fired as the startup company transitions to become a large company.
In truth, I think I’m like and am more fitted for the ‘scalable startup’ and ‘transitional’ phases than the later ‘Large Company’ type of role. So I know one day, it’s better to give the reins to someone else to make the business grow bigger and stronger. And if I can get all vested or cash out; I’d rather jump to the next start up than run a monotonous ‘focus on repeatability’ environment.
Through stress testing and training yourself being in uncomfortable position really helps build qualities of tenacity, perseverance and mental toughness. And knowing what stage your company is at will also help you realize how to best optimize your skill set or position yourself at the company.
