Startup Issues -- The Team, continued...

Wow, it happened again.

Here I was ready to jump on board another startup -- Ready? Hell, I did jump on board! -- when the rug got pulled out from under me by the worst bugaboo of them all: teammate incompatibility.

The Inventor, holding the majority of the company and the patent (when it issues), didn't speak English well enough to communicate to me his concerns, and when I demonstrated Silicon Valley passion while recruiting another team mate, someone that I was bringing in, he didn't understand what happened. He couldn't understand how his actions forced the situation and couldn't get passed my "very public" reaction (or he couldn't admit being at fault). A week after I had thought the whole incident was behind us, he suddenly brought it up again at a founders' after meeting get together. When he did, the other founder said, "If you can't get past this, then I quit." Thus the team dissolved.

After the Inventor left, my other team mate, also a business person confided that, "If he can't get over something minor like this with you, it is not a matter of "if", but of "when" will it happen to me." He had too many other opportunities, as happens with really good team members, to stick around waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The real problem was that the Inventor was not aligned with the high tech entrepreneurial culture of the Silicon Valley. He had recently come over from a European country where working conditions are heavily mandated by law and failure is not forgiven. In the Silicon Valley, almost every successful entrepreneur has at least one failure behind him or her! "Get up and do it again," is the cry of the crowd.

This is the mentality of the San Francisco Bay Area. While many people fled the catastrophic down turn in technology spending and investment led by the Dot-Bomb, the survivor entrepreneurs are now stronger than ever. This whole area fell into a major depression caused by Y2K delaying the 3 year replacement cycle in the PC business, the Dot-Bomb beginning in early 2001, 9/11 pushing the purchase cycle out further or delaying all IT expansion due to unforeseeable risk, the devastation of multiple industries like travel and hospitality, the venture community pulling an ostrich act, and then just as the computer and communications markets was beginning to pull out of this very, very dark place, our President has to convince Congress that Iraq's government needs to be overthrown for our National Security. Thus, the rebound was pushed off for another 2 years. Now, in September 9th of 2007, six years after that horrible attack, the Silicon Valley is again booming. The rebound is here. And, it is bringing the wannabes out of the woodwork.

Thank god for the vitality of the Valley. I love this place, the people who live here, and the culture of open exploration. But, I'm going to put governors on my internal entrepreneurial engine when I find or create the next startup opportunity for myself. There is going to be a frank discussion as to whether the team that wants me is ready for prime time!

Harrison Rose