Startup.com Lessons Learned: Partnership
Startup.com was a brilliant movie which followed a couple entrepreneurs through one of their startups. While there were a lot of great plot points, stressful situations, and joyful moments, I got more out of the movie as I started to think about my past growing up. My name is Robert Stanton and my dad is a Serial Entrepreneur.
I think the biggest thing I learned from this movie is its not always a good idea to partner up with your best friends: the fall out is too huge. When reflecting on my dad's history, he has never partnered with a childhood or previous work life friend of his. I asked him a couple days ago why and he said that no job is worth risking a friendship. He's founded more companies than I can even remember and throughout these companies the same group of people remain.
English: Vibha Bhatnagar, Film Producer and Entrep...
English: Goldman Sachs Tower (Jersey City) Omnibus...
Español: PIB según Goldman SachsHe found a group of like-minded individuals who have no prior history together, who all mesh well together. To my dad's credit, I have never seen him yelling at any employees and after seeing this movie, I know it must have happened. Him shielding me from this made me think starting a business must be easy growing up; this movie re-reminded me business is business, feelings will get hurt. I think if I was the CEO of govWorks I would have made clear boundaries with my best friend. The fact that the company was so far in and it was still unclear if there was a dual CEO scenario is beyond me.
Being humble as an entrepreneur is something that is sometimes overlooked; it is something govWorks.com overlooked. Every entrepreneur is a risk taker of some sorts, for instance Kaleil left is high paying job at Goldman Sachs...