Understanding an Entrepreneur's Passion

I've written before about what I believe it means to be an entrepreneur. To me, it's a desire to innovate and grow. It's also a desire to avoid failure.

This isn't to be confused with having a fear of failure.   Most people will never get out on their own and start a company if they're hampered by a fear of failure. Rather, those that do start their own companies do everything in their power to keep them running.

Recently, the story of StumbleUpon made me think about this again. StumbleUpon was bought back by its original founders, with some help from a few new investors. There is a follow-up post that expands a bit on the potential reasons the founders bought it back as well. I think that their job wasn't quite done and they couldn't see a product with huge potential fail without another push.

Something similar happened here in Madison a few years ago, with the buy-back of Guild.com. The more you poke around, the more you find other stories that follow the same trend. Some might say that the founders saw an opportunity for easy money when they bought the company back.  I don't believe that entrepreneurs think this way.

You might guess that the resources of a company such as eBay might increase StumbleUpon's chances for success.  The second TechCrunch story talks about efficient allocation of resources. I find it hard to believe that StumbleUpon was hampered so much by the bureaucracy of eBay. Yet, eBay has a history of similar moves, such as the monumental overpayment for Skype.

Personally, I see is a sale to a company that didn't understand how they could best use the product and the acknowledgment on the part of the founders that their baby was dying. They knew how it could be improved and its growth could continue and wanted to make sure the effort was made to realize their original vision.  What do you think?

Comments

[Ryan Stephens]

Honestly I don't really know enough about either entity to respond with any conviction. But I do know that even when I was a teenager and I made ridiculous little websites, and then passed them on to someone else as my interests changed, I immediately wanted them back when they started failing.

I think entrepreneurs take great pride in something that they invested a lot of time and sweat equity into. Maybe it doesn't stimulate you the way it used to, and maybe you've become more passionate about other things, but there's definitely a sense of "I can keep my baby afloat."

[Dale Beermann]

Ryan, I think you're absolutely right that pride has a lot to do with. I wonder if that comes from the typical personality profile of an entrepreneur (I'm an ENTJ, I think most entrepreneurs are as well).

[Randy]

I think your statement "...their baby was dying." is what really sums it up.
Entrepreneurs/founders spend so much of their life building something from nothing, and so much emotion and passion goes into it that I believe in many ways it can be compared to raising a child. You put all of your love and attention into the child/company's interests so that you can see them grow up healthy, happy, and successful.
So, if you agree with this analogy, then the reality is that it is hard for a parent to let go and just ignore their child if they loose their first job, or run out of money, or if they walk away from an un-healthy relationship.
Great post!