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An entrepreneur’s vision is a very powerful motivational force. The vibrant images of market success, raving customers, and media interest, push us along as we toil and tweak plans and prototypes. To the visionary, their vision is clear and compelling, and only lacks exposure.
Vision + Exposure = Success
This is the equation that lives in the minds of entrepreneurs; it is simple, proven, and invigorating. If it weren’t so simple, many of us would not pursue our dreams. With the vision emblazoned in our mind’s eye, we set forth on the entrepreneurial path, discovering potential customers, documenting product features, and doing everything we can to get in front of investors, whom we believe only need to be introduced (exposed) to our vision to break out the checkbook.
So we pitch, sometimes with a product, sometimes without, and we send off executive summaries to anyone willing to listen. And then something quite unnerving happens; people hear the pitch, ask a few questions, and send an eMail a few days later highlighting all of the problems and none of the potential.
“Wait, where is the check?”
The first rejection feels like a right of passage. “They just don’t get it,” you say to yourself, as you walk out of the office after being bluntly whacked with their concerns, doubts, and what feels like slightly insulting comments. The next time around your confidence is brimming again, the big rejection is out of the way, and now its time for the ink of their Monte Blancs to grace the signature line of an oversized check. You present a revised pitch, and still get blindsided by a few “now all too familiar” questions and concerns.
Rejection Stings - Quitting is Cancer
In a matter of one week, PF was rejected twice, with the real stinger coming from the Committee of Judges presiding over the U.C Berkeley Business Plan Competition, who passed on PF as a Semi-Finalist contestant for this years event. Ooouch!
When the email announcement popped into my inbox I opened it without any delay or concern; the idea that PF would not be a semi-finalist selection simply did not register. I read through the alphabetical list of company names, and then stopped when a company name that started with “R” appeared (P-Q-R). I looked up and down the list a few more times, and then felt a sting permeating from the screen.
Validation from disinterested groups is the second infusion of motivation for an entrepreneur. It is important that people you talk to express a little note of excitement about the vision. When early rejection occurs, the vision is called into question for the first time. Sure, you know there are major barriers, and are under no illusion that success is guaranteed, but when the very force that has prompted you to stay up late into the night, and has taken over all your daydreams and free time, is not readily accepted, you start to worry.
Constant fear and treading along the brink of failure have been noted as marquee events along the path of entrepreneurial success, but quitting is the dead-end road that will haunt you years later. The road to success is not linear, and the journey to reaching a visionary goal is not well marked, paved, or without its many potholes and booby traps. Today feels better then yesterday, and the PF caravan marches on!
Technorati Tags: Business Plan Competition, Vision, StartUp, Rejection, Pitching
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