A Start-Up Evolves - The Hunter-Gatherer Stage

When I’ve worked as a contractor for companies, I knew I was a hunter-gatherer for hire.  I wasn't to be part of the metaphorical agricultural revolution of a company, but a task completer.  I was to find this herb for this purpose, deliver it, then done.

I found being a contractor very satisfying if these conditions could be met:

• Tell me what you want to have happen as a result of my work.
• Tell me what the rules are.
• Tell me the criteria by which my work will be evaluated.
• Tell me when it’s due.
• Praise me and pay me.

As I contractor, I knew it was the work, what I brought to that work, and my ability to execute with regard to these criteria that created my value.

When I’ve worked as an employee for companies, I’ve found the experience more complex.  A company expects an employee to be both contractor and team member, both hunter-gatherer and communal farmer.  Synergy is the goal.  I’m expected to be one of the parts that creates the greater whole.  Synergy requires that I not only generate good work, but build relationships, and interact within those relationships within the context of, and to further, the company’s mission.  What’s wanted of me, what the rules are, and by what criteria I will be evaluated, although occasionally defined in job descriptions, can be intangible and amorphous.  It's a rich experience, but different from that of a contractor.

As a contractor, it was my work that was valued, not my contribution to the synergy of a company or community.  Therefore, I was not tied to, obligated to, or necessarily loyal to the company with whom I contracted.  I had lots of gigs, worked for lots of companies, and could accept or reject a project to find this nut or that grain at will.  I didn’t have the context, connections, or benefits of “belonging” to a company but, at the time, that met my personal and professional needs.

But if I didn't work, I didn't eat.  Like a hunter-gatherer, I was free to wander, but I didn't have the safety of a salary and its hut full of food when a storm hit.

As the founder of a company with a one-year anniversary under its belt, what I need from those with whom I work - contractors, interns, even professional service providers - is execution.  I share this condition with a contractor:  My company is in the energy intensive hunter-gatherer stage of evolution.  If I don’t find food, I don’t eat.  As my company becomes established, we'll stage a revolution, domesticate our plants and animals, and develop a corporate culture of synergy.

In the meantime, I need contractors who can execute.  I need fruit right now.

What I give up by having contractors rather than employees is their loyalty, their commitment, their evolution into what they could become while planting roots in my company.  I lose the chance to have my own synergistic relationship with the employee.  I heard a new employee of a company within one week of being hired refer to the company as “we.”  No one says “we” about my company.  Not yet.

But as a company founder in the hunter-gatherer stage, what I lack is time.  If I myself, or contractors who work for my company, don’t execute - “find food,” a.k.a. generate revenue or directly support the generation of revenue - I grow weak from hunger.  The weaker I am, the less power I have to “find food,” to meet with potential clients, to design products and services for the demands of the market, to execute my company’s strategy.

The greater the maintenance required by contractors, the less time the founder has to found the company.  The greater the ability to execute by contractors, the more time the founder has to found.

I've heard a statistic for which I don't have a source:  80% of a manager's time is spent in human resources, i.e. in wrangling personnel.

I hear that and I feel hungry.

The ecology of a start-up can be fragile.  This is normal, natural, and expected in a company’s evolution.  Ultimately, the success of a start-up depends upon the strength of the founder.  Thirteen months after launch, this founder is feeling strong and is founding as hard as she can.  At times maniacally.  Always determinedly.

Tomorrow, she will welcome employees and synergy and revolution.

Today, she welcomes contractors who find and deliver herbs.

Comments

[Robert Giles]

I fear you describe the condition noted in the literature for so many small-business failures: under-funded.

Yours is the condition of the new university professor in a poorly-managed department. Do teaching, do studies, do other conventional things, and while you are visibly inactive, create ideas and get them funded by grants.
Parallel: under-funded.

[Anne Clelland]

Ah, the same was reported to me by my incorporating attorney from LeClairRyan, Peer Segelke, a year ago: Most businesses fail because they are underfunded.

I have a start-up "friends and family" loan that I put last on the to-do payment list.

Nonetheless, if I could start my company over again, I would ask for a larger friends and family loan and negotiate payback in two years.

Underfunding means under-reaching, no matter how far the entrepreneur extends dreams for the stars.

Your university professor metaphor fits.