Your Venture Is Your Character

A company is a character study of its founders, whether they intended it or not.

A BOOTSTRAPPED CHARACTER TRUMPS ALL

As an active founder, you cannot grow your venture faster than you grow yourself (at least not sustainably).

Shocking to say, but not surprising: as founder, you are the core of your venture. Every decision, every responsibility, every dilemma rests upon you.

No matter how skilled and brilliant you may be, flaky integrity, emotional immaturity, or clouded perceptions can pull you down. Weakness in any of those areas is deadly; a single mistake there can kill a business.

Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

— Emerson

Not having the fundamentals is an accident waiting to happen. What got you this far is not enough for the next level. Only by continually investing in your inner self can you gain the strength to take the company where you dream it can go.

The good news is that the struggle to get a company off the ground will naturally cause you to grow in a huge range of ways. Just like a muscle, your emotional grit, your stoicism, and your sense of values will gain in strength as you face and overcome struggles.

This is not a linear process, and your patterns of growth depend on how hungry you are, your mastery of self-control, and your development of self-knowledge. How you choose to react to experience will turn you towards the light (reason, justice, principles) or away from it (self-aggrandisement, greed, unprincipled behaviour).

Invest in your own personal growth first, and your increased capacity will be a compounding asset that drives your business forward.

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