Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Andy Sack
As I witness more and more start up companies in action, I’ve recently developed a hypothesis. The hypothesis is simple: the founding teams who embrace the uncertainty of a startup with fun, whimsy, and lightness build more successful companies.
When starting teams embrace the fun along with the hard work, a number of important things happen:
- Teams become inspired by the uncertainty; better products produced and insights discovered
- When bad things or hard times inevitably happen to the business, the lightness helps the teams find a way through
- Customers are attracted to the fun
- Entrepreneurship is long and the outcome ambiguous at best — lightness and fun means you enjoy the process, which is a degree of success unto itself
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Prospective employees want to join light teams — recruiting becomes easier
The hypothesis is based on my own anecdotal observations and isn’t backed up by hard core data. If anyone has data that supports or refutes this idea, I’d love to hear from them. One last thing: the title of the post obviously comes from one of my favorite books by Milan Kundera.
It’s spring time — enjoy yourself and your startup.
