Doing the things that you don't like to do
- Aug 16, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
“All I ever wanted was the freedom to make my own mistakes.” - Mance Rayder[1]
Toxic dumbness.
Years back when IJK was established to enter the advisory business, we had a whole bunch of M&A and capital raising deals thrusted on to our plate by an older person who offered to mentor us on our startup journey. He was our deal originator, only because he had claimed to know a lot of people in high places attributed to the size of his fund.
At that point of time, our plate had numerous companies looking to raise capital, firms large and small who were trying to get into new markets, early stage start ups in search of funding, or people who were simply just trying to put capital to work. It seemed like a buffet of deals.
We spent a considerable effort evaluating each and every one of them.
It mostly involved a systematic way of filtering and deciding whether or not to proceed. For certain deals, we were told that we had to do some 'favours' such as buying meals, hosting them at conferences, meeting their stakeholders, various brokers or associates who were party to the transaction. Some of these favours also include sitting mindlessly in a classroom for days as a teaching assistant. There was no doubt that this was all part of the process.
When ever there was an impasse on a potential deal, such as deeming a project as not cost-effective or disagreed with going ahead, the mentor would say:
"When starting up, sometimes you just have to do the things that you don't like to do."
But our deal pipeline had been so full—full of long shots and losers.
There were projects that had a low probability of closing, clients that likely couldn't pay, or simply just a waste of our time.
In the spirit of cooperation and good faith, we continued to listen. But in reality we were starting to bleed cash, and never had any real decision-making authority to kill the deal or proceed with what we felt in our gut made more commercial sense.
It was only over a year later that I had begun to realize the ironic and toxic dumbness of it all:
The idea of starting up had been ours, us bearing our own costs, but somehow suffocating under a blind workload, executing a totally different agenda that belonged to someone else, just to heed conventional wisdom.
We were told that the rites of passage of starting up was part of the process, that is—to do the things that we didn't like to do.
No longer the owner of my own business.
I couldn't pinpoint exactly when it started to dawn on me, but one day amidst the frenzy of calls and meetings, I woke up, subconsciously dragging my feet out of the house and feeling that morning anxiety of arriving at the office before 9:30am.
I was also checking my emails and text messages in the same way I used to check my Blackberry on a Friday evening, hoping that you don’t get a nasty email from the ‘boss’ to turn around a slide deck by Monday.
And in any job, the moment you start counting down to Fridays or dread Monday mornings, you are basically f**ked.
One day I decided to re-examine the leads I had on hand:
I had no full context to these projects, no direct connection to the source, no tangible resources to mobilise. Perhaps more importantly, no autonomy in dictating any of the commercial terms. It wasn’t even a client that I originated. I had been stuffed to the neck with work that wasn't mine and was simply churning slides and spreadsheeting numbers.
At every discussion, I found myself mostly on the receiving end, listening to fluffy ideas and being fed with lofty dreams, all the while being told to follow up on execution in the background.
A lot of these didn't have any commercial mandates tied to it. It was basically a bunch of errands done in goodwill, in the blind hope that would one day convert into a billion dollar opportunity.
We were being played.
And as the proverbial Chinese saying goes, I was being led by the nose.
In that whole process, I think no one really considered what I wanted for myself. The whole experience felt like doing corporate finance work all over again except that my bank account was drying up faster than I could replenish it.
When as the dust finally settled, everything started to clear up:
My intention of starting a business had been to unshackle myself from a corporate job, but I ended up in a situation whereby I was working on someone else’s projects and providing the ‘weekly reports’ on a regular basis.
Suddenly I was an employee all over again.
This reality hit me really hard when I ran this through my head and played it out right till the very end—
I was no longer the owner of my business, whatever the form it had evolved into.
Notwithstanding the lofty dreams that were being fed to me, the reality was that: I had no say, no control, no money, no visibility.
I had all of the downside and none of the upside. That whole process taught me something important:
In any moment of vulnerability, if you are not careful in protecting your dreams, someone else will show up and make you build their dreams for them.
Vulnerability can create a blind spot, or a false sense of urgency which can cause people to become overly trusting which then impairs decision making—much like a drowning man clutching a straw.
Of course not everyone is a charlatan like the mentor, but everyone does have their own personal agenda. They are just trying to validate their own narrative based on what works for them.
Sometimes the interests of all parties are aligned, but most of the time it isn't.
Humans are complex organisms. What works for one person may not necessarily work for another. And if you are not careful, you can fall into someone else’s dark agenda.
What matters.
In any enterprise with more than one shareholder, it is almost inevitable that decision-making and relationship dynamics get entwined. Everyone brings a set of different resources to the table--some bring sweat, some bring relationships, some open doors, others bring influence.
But regardless of what you bring to the table there are always some fundamental rules to abide by:
Integrity and transparency above and before economics, always.
Respect the money i.e. everyone has the right to their opinion, but only those with skin in the game get to decide.
In any deadlock or impasse, refer to point number 2.
Whenever you feel that you are getting the short end of the stick, refer to point number 2.
If you find yourself doing the things that you don't like to do, refer to point number 2
Everything fundamentally defaults to point number two. Money talks.
You can be well credentialed, bring grey hairs and sweat accumulated from years of experience, or show off selfie photos with the big shots. But none of that really matters unless you put money on the table.
That is all there is.
The memory of walking to my usual cafe in during the morning of January 2020 remains very clear to me till this day.
It had been just before COVID went full blown, as I spent some time thinking back upon the last four years. Some of those in our circle who knew our story often likened it to a Netflix drama serial. But only those of us who had experienced it first hand will remember these interesting "war stories" in generations to come.
I do not say this out of spite but those who operate behind a desk under a steady salary will never understand first-hand what it is like to be running your own business. These people have no skin in the game and make no decisions of consequence.
I should have been panicking given the unnerving amount of cash in my bank account and thinking about what lies next. But even in those dark moments, I had found a quaint inner peace, taking responsibility of all the good and bad decisions that were made. I was dry, but I felt liberated.
Perhaps all I really wanted out from starting a business was the freedom to do what I wanted, including the freedom to make my own mistakes.
[1] Adapted from Mance Rayder, leader of the free folk, from the HBO series "Game of Thrones"
