On core values as a founder.
With no background in entrepreneurship and in spaces that were totally new to me, I built two businesses in one year and in doing so created over a hundred million dollars of value.
There were a few guiding principles which helped me do that.
1. Bridging business and fun
I’ve always been turned off by the false dichotomy that strictly divides the “serious” and “focused” from the “entertaining” and “fun.”
Through my fortunate successes, my life as a founder has been both a serious commitment and a grand adventure.
2. Honoring commitment
I uphold two promises to anyone who chooses to join us.
First: In my two ventures, incredible folks have left a lot of cash on the table to come join whatever I was working on because they trusted me. That’s extremely motivating and meaningful to me, so in return I promise them I will do everything I can to make this the best career decision they’ve ever made.
Second: I’ll never ask someone to do anything that I wouldn’t do personally, I’ll never ask them to work any harder than I’ll work. There’s nothing less inspiring than a leader who commands but does not contribute.
3. The team win
Building a business is building a community of team members, investors, partners, and customers around the shared vision of maximizing the benefit of everyone involved.
The beauty of a startup is that in economic terms it’s a positive-sum game. There’s a real opportunity to achieve the team win. That vision has to be the shared driver of everyone at the company. I learned the hard way in my first business what happens if I hold that vision but bring in others who do not.
For Novel, my co-founders Anna, Brian, and I look for values alignment through a track record of selflessness and integrity in everyone we hire.
It’s simple to filter for; we ask the question: “Who is the person you have elevated the most?” For the people we want, the hard part is that they can only pick one.