Jesko Von Windheim - The Startup: Navigating Chaos to Elevate Your Career and Achieve Entrepreneurial Success

Jesko von Windheim

The Startup

Navigating Chaos to Elevate Your Career and Achieve Entrepreneurial Success

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This book is dedicated to my mom and dad who taught me to be bold and to embrace chaos.

Turbulence sucks.

At 33,000 feet in the air, we were in the thick of it, causing even a seasoned traveler like myself to grip my armrests in forgotten prayer. Ignoring the twists and turns of the plane, I leaned my forehead against the window, trying to get some sort of relief. The cold felt good, easing the headache that was about to explode, taking my mind off the nausea building in my gut.

It had been a rough, almost surreal tripstarting with the flight up to Ottawa, into the middle of an ice storm with ice thick enough to topple electrical transmission towersand ending with failure. There was just no other word for it. Forget turbulence, I had failed.

As we descended, I realized the feelings in my head, my gut, and even my heart werent physical; they were the manifestations of a failing venture and the bitter recriminations that came with it.

Yes, turbulence sucks. But its one thing if youre experiencing it on a plane, flying from one city to the next, and quite another if its a defining characteristic of your career. Or your earning capacity. Or your life. On the plane, youre just a passenger. Turbulence is a short-term nuisance until your pilot finds a smoother flight path.

As an entrepreneur, you learn quickly that turbulence is an integral and unavoidable part of your life. The ups and downs are extreme, with the potential to cause damage that goes far beyond a bit of nausea or short-term sphincter clenching. You, the entrepreneur, are the pilot. Attempts to find smoother air are entirely up to you. And in this case, there are no fancy gizmos to help you get thereno maps, no flashing lights, no gurus at the top of the mountain. Its you and whatever you can dream up to make things better. Most people avoid such craziness and get a real job. Thats what everyone is taught to do.

Successful entrepreneurs learn to embrace the unpredictability of turbulenceunderstanding that highs and lows are a natural part of innovation. Of course you envy friendsthe ones with stable career paths at McKinsey, Apple, or Googlebut the corporate grind is not in your DNA. There is an element of gambling to what you do, with a unique twist because the game is your own. Success or failure is entirely based on your rulebook. Under these conditions, success is insanely gratifying and failure is particularly bitter. I know.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to understand the game. Turbulencerisk, the unknown, chaosis unavoidable. Embracing entrepreneurship, but not turbulence is the path that is least likely to lead to success. If others depend on youyour co-founders, co-workers, or familythen ignoring turbulence is worse than a mistake, its reckless and can have a profoundly negative impact on your life and the lives of those close to you. As an entrepreneur, it is crucial to appreciate the chaos that permeates your situation and proceed with caution. Anything else may be disastrous.

When I began my career commercializing technology innovations, I learned that many people I worked withparticularly my bosses, but also technical collaboratorsexpected the business guy to magically make the chaos go awayor, at the very least, be able to identify and avoid it, just like the pilot in the plane.

But new innovations are never quite what you think they will bethey always require more development than expected and more time than you planned for. Technology rarely performs exactly like the tech team said it would. And, it turns out, customers are just as fickle! One day they like your new technology, the next day they dont, and the day after that, they go with a competing product. All of this creates chaos for your startup. A lot of chaos. Turbulence.