4-Step Entrepreneur Screening Test

Over the years I have figured out that I am just wired a little differently from many of my friends, classmates, and fellow attorneys. It almost sounds cliché, but throughout my life I have always held the belief that pretty much any problem can be solved if we have the time. Where most see problems I, like many entrepreneurs, see opportunities. When others panic, I methodically think through a situation which can resolve the issue at hand.

One such infamous instance occurred one evening over a few drinks between some attorney friends of mine. As we meandered through small talk and the drinks continued to flow the topic of conversation turned to interesting legal issues we had recently encountered.

In my case, one of my clients had recently encountered a frivolous  lawsuit which, because of the nature of the legal system, threatened to cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend. The kicker, he hadn’t done anything wrong. At this point I know what you are thinking. “Sure, nothing wrong you say.” Seriously. Nothing. Nadda. But being a savvy business person my client decided to settle the matter quickly and pay out about $50,000.  The problem? If he had to pay off one frivolous lawsuit when was the next coming? He didn’t want to have to deal with this again. No one should. So when it was all said and done and the settlement check had cleared he came to me and said, “Matt, I never want this to happen again. What do we do?”

So we sat down one afternoon and brainstormed all of the possibilities. How had he gotten to this point. How could it be prevented. After a few hours of bouncing ideas off of one another we kept circling around and coming back to one theme, one possibility: an innovative corporate structure that would preclude the possibility of his being served with a frivolous lawsuit. Could it work? We wrote up the model. Diagrammed out everything that could happen. We tested and re-tested the model and tested it again. By the next day we had done it. We had created a model so simplistic in nature but so soundproof in design that he was, essentially, insulated from the form of frivolous lawsuit that had led us to this innovation. Success and opportunity inspired by need and stoked by the belief that a solution could be achieved. It was that simple.

As I relayed this to our attorney friends (with a tad more detail than shall be printed here) the response I received was, to paraphrase Rip Torn from the movie Men in Black, everything I expected from attorneys trained in the ivory towers of big firms in Washington, D.C.

“You can’t do that!” one yelled.  “Why not?” I calmly responded. “Because, you just can’t.”  “Why?” I replied starting to wonder he would articulate his reasoning or just sit there with that befuddled look on his face. “Because,” he started, his resolve noticeably turning to frustration, “you just can’t.”

“You say that it cannot be done, yet you cannot say why. Might I suggest to you that it can be done, you have simply never seen this before and, as such, are rejecting the same for that reason alone.” Steam began to shoot from my friend’s ears. His face reddened. His posture became more hostile. “You can’t!” he loudly exclaimed bordering on yelling, his frustration now clearly getting the best of him.

“Again, I’m getting the fact that you do not believe in this. But why? It works. I’m telling you just because it has not been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” After a few more rounds of unsupported objections to this new structure I finally dropped the death blow: “Not only can it work, six months ago I set up one of my clients with the structure and, to date, no more frivolous lawsuits.” A deathly silence gripped the room. His steely glare let me know all that I needed to know, that he would never agree with me yet had no response to challenge not only my theory but also my evidence the innovation had worked.

Ultimately, the tension was broken by an empty glass in need of refilling. The battle was over, the lines drawn, but no matter what I brought to the game there was simply no convincing my friend that an innovation had occurred and that simply because it had never been done before did not mean it could not work.

So what’s the take away here? People like my lawyer friend should never be an entrepreneur. They are just not wired for it. They only want to see and live in the what is and cannot see the what can be.

As I have traveled down the road of entrepreneurship I have learned many lessons.  Perhaps the one that sticks with me the most, as alluded to above, is that entrepreneurs, on the whole, are simply wired a little differently than others. We prefer structured risks where others seek security. We adapt and are challenged by obstacles where others lament their fate. We look for solutions and strive to achieve them where others are confined to what is readily known and accepted.

So if you are considering becoming an entrepreneur or if you already are and are wondering if you should remain as one here is a simple four-part test you can take to see if you are wired like an entrepreneur:

1.       Problem Spotter vs. Problem Solver

Are you a problem spotter or a problem solver? What’s the difference? A problem spotter is someone who can see a problem but offers no constructive solution to address the same. In life the majority of people you will come across can see a problem but cannot or do not solve it.

I’ve been involved in many start-ups over the years. Some that got off the ground. Some that did not. For those that failed to get off the ground the vast majority did so because they got bogged down with too many problem spotters and did not have enough problem solvers.

Back in the late 1990s, at the height of the dot com era, I was involved in two failed ventures that died specifically because of problem spotters. We would start almost every meeting with a discussion of what had been achieved since the last meeting via-à-vis product development and then, inevitably, the Debbie Downers would start rattling off lists of “issues” they had problem spotted that were going to interfere with bringing the product to market. Mind you, the Debbies never proposed solutions. They just loved standing up and telling us how this would not work or that would be an issue. “Thank you so much concerned citizen. Now sit down unless you have a solution!”

On the other hand, a problem solver is someone with true value. They can not only spot a problem but can also craft a solution to the same. Most importantly, they bring to the table a view that even if spotted we will get past the problem so let’s figure out a way to do so.   Obviously everyone will vary in the quality of their resolutions. But the distinction between the two is the key.

Problem spotters only spot the problems. Entrepreneurs spot them and offer a solution therefore. So are you a problem spotter or a problem solver?

2.       Handling Stress

Another key factor for entrepreneurs is how they handle stress. Every job has stress. But entrepreneurs have to recognize that each day will often create new challenges, new stresses, and they must be able to cope with the same and work through the issues causing the stress to achieve their objectives.

On one of my office walls is painted the iconic slogan “Remain Calm, Carry On.” To be an entrepreneur you must be able to function in the stress of the moment and be able to recognize that you may not know what tomorrow’s will bring, but stress will come, and you will have to get through it and carry on. I have this slogan painted on my wall as a constant reminder of this fact.