Try hiring an entrepreneur

Much as founding teams would like to hire future leaders, they would in fact be looking for true blue entrepreneurs to lead their enterprise into the next phase of growth.  Having been in the founding mode for quite a while, they know how it’s like to be in the trenches and what takes an entrepreneur come of age.  Having been thro all that grind and having survived it, why would any one leave that joy of enjoying one’s own fruits of labor and the freedom that comes with it to move on to manage someone else’s enterprise?

 Actually speaking, there is no reason why one should forsake enterprise liberties to go and work in another firm.  But sometimes it’s a necessity for many a fledgling ventures and other tried-it-but-didn’t-quite-fly types.  Not necessarily that these guys are losers, it may just be that they found the risks too much to bear.  Nothing wrong with it.  In fact, if you have that realization early on and are quick to make amends and retrace your steps, you must be a real warrior in another firm where the risks are shared. 

 I know quite a few mediocre guys making it big in the job scene and quite a few brilliant entrepreneurs that are struggling.  I am seriously in talks with a few such guys for a new venture that I intend to float in the coming weeks.  That’s why the topic.  I don’t need employees, I need founding partners.  Employees come to work to earn a paycheck, whereas entrepreneurs try to prove a point.  They go to any lengths to achieve their goals and it’s such guys that I need to work with me.

 So, how do I headhunt entrepreneurs?  Most recruiting firms I talked to boast of head hunters in their database, but none came forward.  The recruiters cannot keep using the same bait of “better prospects” to an entrepreneur, because he isn’t exactly after a paycheck.  He had figured out something in his head and is on a lookout for a play field where he could exercise his theories and make a living.  Meanwhile I’ll keep searching.

Creative conundrum

I concede.  Having known some, it’s way too difficult to explain why creative individuals are the way they are.  Not that they are weird or something. On occasions when they don’t conform to conventions and follow their hearts, it seems they are kind of warped.  Scratch deeper and we get at some stark rationale – in that quite little quirks and twists go into the making of an individual.  To suppress them all and follow the clock and calendar and creed until the individual is lost in the neutral gray of the host is to be less than true to their inheritance.  Life never compels one to follow another man’s rules.  It’s true that we have the same hunger and same thirsts, but that is for different things in different ways at different seasons. Lay down your own day, follow it to its noon, your own noon or you’ll sit in an outer hall listening to the chimes but never reaching high enough to strike your own.  

Their appetite for novelty is inexhaustible.  For them, life is one long process of trying risk laden new things, getting tired before starting all over again.  The levels of creative energy sets them apart from other mortals.  They’ve long since realized opportunity is often difficult to recognize;  something we usually expect to beckon us with beepers and billboards.  Like the CNBC analyst that cautions investors to wait till markets stabilize for investing in a relatively inexpensive stock, by when the stock is in every one’s radar, the arbitrage vanishes and valuations shoot through the roof.

So if you are a lesser mortal but raring to set your own rules and go,  remember.  Before you dunk in the creative seas,  always use the rule #1 in the old life guard rule book – Seize the opportunity by the beard,  for it is bald behind !!!

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