My Name is Porn, Entreporn; A Founder's View on 'Entrepreneurship Fluff'
en·tre·pre·neur (ntr-pr-nûr, -nr)
n.
A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.
porn (ˈpȯrn)
n. often attributive
Creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire
Brilliantly coined by Amy Hoy, “Entreporn” very well reflects the value of most of the fluff that floats around in the startup world. Yet, we all have done it, we all have scavenged for every available article/screencast to get a feel for the work and to be a little more aware of the ecosystem. Just like this article’s headline, they are written with catchy headlines and jazzy stuff; though it's usually all fluff.
“10 startup lessons from XYZ”, “15 startup lessons from XYZ movie”, “15 reasons why startups fail” etc etc and some more etc; there are around 300 Mn such stuff floating around. And in the quest of locating the most useful information, we (startup founders) waste the most precious commodity (next to equity): our time.
10 lessons I learnt from entreporn
- Stop worrying about tasks ahead and the 'best' way to do it. Just effing do it!
- No one knows me and my business, better than myself. None of the “15 challenges faced by startup entrepreneurs” is going to help
- Employ the founders/experts who are at a different lifecycle, to filter the fluff for you. Instead of trying to RSS every blog, follow others who can “curate” the info for you.
- Unless you have a specific problem that you want to “research” about, don’t read articles for answers to figure out questions.
- All epiphanies happen while solving your problems and not while reading someone else’s solution to his problems.
- It's a zillion times more worth to hustle and speak to an expert/senior/mentor to discuss your problem, than reading reams of internet fluff.
- By this point, you have realized that none of the above points is new
- You are wondering, isn’t this article ironically an element of the entreporn set
- You are damn right!
- Thank you for the frown.
At GSF, 4 weeks of crisp mentoring by the best in the industry, has taught me the importance of being succinct, the art of negating fart. It has made me realize that most of us already know the answers to our problems, but we just keep looking for external validation from articles/people who we believe would know better. Sorry sir, you are the entrepreneur. You are the risk taker. It's part of your job to fail early and fail fast. Keep applying the hypothesis and keep coming out of it.
Ask the right questions. Look for their answers. Repeat.
About the author:
Talvinder Singh, Founder, Tushky.com (Tushky is currently being accelerated at GSF)