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Turning a small idea in a million dollar company is a dream, but as we know, it’s not quick and easy as it might seem. It takes time, a co-founder and a lot of sleepless nights to figure out if what you are doing is the right thing. Hundreds of startups die and start every day. It’s a continuous loop that will probably never end. When success comes, after having not seen the light of the sun for days, you might turn a bit crazy and that’s where morality comes in.
Especially when you are young and unexperienced the amount of money that you receive from investors might drive you crazy. That’s when the human side of a person plays a big role. If you have never seen that amount of money, you either keep iterating and focusing on your product or go nuts and realise that your life might be sorted forever. It’s not that rare to see a young startup founder blowing up all the VC money.
Jessica Mah, the Founder of Indinero, founded her company straight after college. As she resembles, after having raised $1.2M in seed funding she and her co-founder thought that the game was over and they would have been the next Intuit. The press coverage and the money gave them too much confidence, which didn’t let them see that their product was failing in their hands. That’s why they got an office with a hot tub, life didn’t seem to be a problem anymore.
A year later, after figuring out the numbers, Jessica was forced to pivot and was able to reach profitability in January 2014. Although she made a lot mistakes, without even knowing what morality was, in the end she was able not to give up, pivot and start all over again. Even if you screw up, it’s never to late.
Although sometimes the cause of your “mistakes” is money, there is always a stupidity factor that comes in. We are referring to the Rap Genius co-founder, Mahbod Moghadam, who got kicked out by his own company for writing comments on Elliot Rodger’s manifesto. When you make fun of a guy who killed other people and then committed suicide, it’s not a matter of money, but it’s just stupidity.
The $16.5M that the company raised since it started didn’t make the co-founder understand the importance of morality. Especially if you are driving other people, as a leader, and you are working face to face with them ever day, you should be an example for your colleagues and followers. You can still have fun, spend your money on Ferraris, but never forget the value of morality and the way your peers perceive you.
It might be money, it might be stupidity, but unfortunately sometimes it’s sexism. Getting kicked out from the most promising and established company of the last years, as the former CEO and President, shouldn’t have been easy for Tim Preston-Werner, who was forced to resign from Github for workplace harassment and bullying. Money doesn’t make you smarter, it doesn’t even help you be a better person, because nothing can change who you really are.
The past is the past and that’s why people, who want Evan Spiegel out of Snapchat for several different “interesting” emails from his Stanford period, are wrong. What a person has done in the past stays in the past. It’s true, people hardly change, but the responsibility that you gain for being a tech founder should be able to shape the person you are going to be. We have seen it working most of the time, but still we find the guy who crosses the line.
Morality should be what drives you in being a good CEO and Founder. If you can’t wake up and look at your face in the mirror, you are probably in the wrong place.
