How to drive me crazy 🤯

Start with eggs and tuna in a train next to me.

It comes in series, always, and this week was particularly flourished, including the very last encounter of the day, a guy next to me in the train who’s eating eggs and tuna. This post is my only distraction to go through the next hour…

Back to it… This week, I had a bunch of interactions with entrepreneurs who were completely losing it and it really drove me crazy, so I decided to take it all out, like a therapy on a Sunday.

Lack of ownership: We all make mistakes, and we must own them, like fully ! Even if we were just a small part of the problem, even if we accidentally triggered someone to act in a bad way. I hate when people blame others or try to find excuses. First acknowledge the issue, then apologise, then see what you could have done differently, see how you could have helped people do things differently, and then think again with open-mindedness. It’s crazy how people love to blame the outside world right away without looking at the inside.

If you haven’t read Extreme Ownership, just do it :)

Lack of awareness: People are all around us and we’re bound to find the best way to connect and interact with them, to understand each other. It’s the basis of everything. And this ability to do that also demonstrates how we’re able to reflect on ourselves. It’s sometimes simple things… It can be someone who needs a seat in the bus, a sibling whose glass of water is empty, a colleague who has given you attention, or just a friend with their feelings. Well, some people seem to be in solo player mode and forget about the world around them… Like when entrepreneurs show up at a meeting and can’t get over their pitch in due time and the worst being, when you explicitly tell them that you’re running out of time, their ability to acknowledge and yet to keep going like they didn’t hear you and it didn’t matter.

Lack of progress : 80% if not more of our portfolio companies will fail overtime or return very little money in regards to our funds models. People wonder how we feel about that… First, we only lose the money once, but we can make a hundred times an investment (even if it’s in rare occasions) ; Second, we are not fuelling success but rather progress. Sometimes the final output is an amazing exit, sometimes it’s not but it’s ok. Failure is a milestone paving the way as entrepreneurs are about to start the next chapter of their journey as founder again or employee. What is very frustrating is when you see entrepreneurs who aren’t progressing, who seem to have a fixed mindset. Their learnings are very limited and their execution even more. It’s a pattern of repetition, things don’t change and it’s absolutely terrible to witness. It’s even worst when they keep asking for your time and you feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day except that it doesn’t end well :)

I’m going to stop here, but I could go on with many other attributes : stupid radicality, violent politeness, rudeness, bad faith (ok this one was very easy), lack of decisiveness…

But to finish on a better note, I also met with amazing people this week and committed on two deals that I am super excited about. Almost eight years in , I don’t get tired of meeting entrepreneurs who are building with passion and ambition, it fills me with great delight every single week :)