Didn’t get there alone

I do not get political in this newsletter. Outside of my support for underrepresented groups in the startup community, I tend to stay away from overtly political stances in the content I create. For the most part, this stance has served me well.

Recently though, I was reminded of a controversy from over a decade ago from a campaign speech by US President Obama in 2012:

This of course became fodder for conservatives during an election year. It was seen as anti-business and insulting to hard-working American business owners. It reinforced the view that the Democratic party was against free enterprise.

As usual though, there is much more to the story than what pundits and politicians present to the public. While that specific quote was poorly articulated, it was clear the context of the speech was how government positively supports businesses by working together. From legal frameworks to transportation systems to trade relationships, it is the government that builds the infrastructure to enable a stable economy, open markets, and safe commerce.

What should have been the takeaway from his message was this portion of his speech:

It is hard to disagree with this statement. We can all look back at the people that had an enormous influence on our lives, whether a parent, teacher, boss, or mentor. Our smarts, hustle, and persistence play a large role in our success, but it is not the entire story.

For us startup founders, our entire industry exists today because of the groundwork laid by the government. Silicon Valley got its start supplying electronic parts to the military starting with vacuum tubes as early as 1909. Many of the technologies we use today owe their start as university research funded by the government going back to World War II and the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). The Internet itself was a creation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency initially created by the Department of Defense to focus on space tech, missile defense, and solid propellants.

Still this line of thinking is very much absent from the current startup founder narrative. The common story in Silicon Valley is to celebrate the founder’s journey and the singular rise of an entrepreneur as a disruptive agent against evil incumbents. Government is routinely vilified as inefficient and an unnecessary roadblock to innovation. And forget about all the people that helped along the way. They simply get tagged as NPC’s (non-player characters) in order to make room for founder mythmaking.

This was not always that way in the tech startup world. Then dot com 1.0 brought attention to the nerds and geeks of Silicon Valley with the likes of Yahoo, eBay, and Google’s founders plastering the covers of top publications like Time and The New York Times. That was in fact what nudged me switch careers to software engineering and move to San Francisco. Then a decade later Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Musk, and Y Combinator elevated the status of the tech founder to new heights of god-like status creating companies worth nearly $100 billion.

We like easy to follow hero stories. Hearing about how founders faced insurmountable odds, took bold risks, and fought the system is fascinating! Writing about these journeys in the media creates a cookie-cutter narrative, a paint-by-the-numbers storytelling process that generates interest from audiences wanting to know the hidden secrets of success and riches. Removed from that story though are all the employees that helped along the way.

I finally had a sliver of time to watch the recent Brian Chesky and Keith Rabois interview. It was part of an event called The Art of Hiring geared for startups looking to scale. For all the sound advice shared, I could not help noticing how absent from Brian’s 45 minute talk was any mention of or appreciation for the many people that made Airbnb a success.

For those of you not familiar with American football, Vince Lombardi is considered one of the greatest coaches ever in the NFL. He led the Green Bay Packers to three straight and five total championships in seven years during the 1960’s, including the first two Super Bowls. The Super Bowl trophy was later named in honor of Lombardi.

Someone that knew all about fame and being the center of attention, he always spoke in terms of the team. Excellence was not achieved because of a few star players, but the collective effort of each member of the team to set and accomplish greatness. Despite his demanding nature, Lombardi cared about his players as individuals. He tried to understand their needs, struggles, and motivations, earning their trust and respect. His goal in all of this was to help players become better athletes and people.

If I had to judge Brian solely by what he shared in his talk, I would think he does not care about his employees. In the six years during a period that he calls “horrible” from 2013 to 2019, the company became a unicorn and was on the cusp of filing an IPO. But he refers to the very people that helped on this journey as “C players”, “incapable”, “mediocre”, and the “worst people”. At no point does he do what true leaders do and point the finger at himself.

Much of the advice he does share though is reasonable for startups, whether just starting or scaling globally. Some of best takeaways include:

• Founders Stay Engaged – CEO’s must stay deeply engaged in product and details; great leadership requires presence, not absence.

• Hiring for Outcomes – Hire based on results, not resumes; conduct deep reference checks and prioritize top talent over bureaucratic fits.

• Keep Teams Lean – Build small, functional teams; avoid unnecessary layers and focus on cross-functional collaboration.

• Managers as Experts – Managers should be experts in their domains, focusing on the work to do done, rather than only managing people.

• Hire for Cultural Fit – Attract high-caliber talent by emphasizing challenges and vision, leveraging personal engagement and trusted networks.

It is inevitable that as your startup gains traction, you will need to hire people. You, your co-founders, and AI chatbots will not be able to execute all the work to be done. It’s the people that you bring along the way that help you achieve your bold vision. It is all the ideas and hands-on effort of your employees that makes the product a reality, gets the product in customer’s hands, and builds the operational rigor to scale.

There is also the help you get outside of your startup that can be instrumental in enabling success. The mentors, advisors, friends, customers, other founders, and investors you engage can have an enormous impact. In the moment, it may not seem that important, like a conversation that drops an insight, poses a challenge, or offers an introduction. That little push though fills up your sails and provides the winds to carry you forward.

None of this is a solo journey. Of course, at the start, it is just you and your effort. There is no one else you can depend upon. Later though, all the people you hire become a team that makes the vision a reality. You earned the right to step on the podium when you win, but it was your team that got you there. Therefore, remember to acknowledge them in the victory speech.

No one gets to the top alone. It’s in working together that you can reach extraordinary heights. If you build a great team, you win together.

Which leads me to a request. I am seeking a technical co-founder to join me on this startup journey. I realize that I cannot do everything alone, especially when it comes to engineering, and I am against outsourcing. I fundamentally believe aligned teams build better products, and the solution I am building requires significant machine learning, data engineering and design skills. What I am looking for in a co-founder is a passionate problem solver that deeply cares about the craft of coding, knows system design, and appreciates the details. This person also loves communities and is either actively involved in or built communities. If you are interested, email me at (mark at devbizops dot co) or message me on LinkedIn.

Thanks again and enjoy the upcoming holidays with your loved ones!

MARK BIRCH

I have just wrapped up my activities in Taiwan to return to NYC for Christmas. Since getting my Taiwan Gold Card in September, I have met so many awesome people. The culmination of that was the past two weeks in Kaohsiung and Taipei. It was a blur of people and events, and I am so grateful to everyone that I had an opportunity to speak with!

The HackerHouse Taiwan was a huge success! Two dozen developers came from the US, Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Germany, Czech Republic, UK, and Taiwan to meet in Taipei and Kaohsiung for an entire week. It was not a hackathon, but a chance for builders to meet other awesome builders, co-work, hang out and possibly collaborate. Shout out to Thorsten Schaeff of Supabase for organizing an excellent week of meetups, activities, travel, places to work, and food exploration!

I also received an invitation to an intriguing and exclusive dinner experience in Taipei organized by a Hong Kong based startup called GenieFriends. Thank you to Preedanan (Dana) Liu of the Gold Card team for the invite, to Jovy Yu for hosting the first Taiwan dinner, and to Angel Lui and Eric San for creating an wonderful and welcoming community of founders and investors!

My last event in Taipei was a wonderful Year End Celebration with Startup Island Taiwan, International Talent Taiwan Office, and Startup Terrace. It was good catching up with recent friends like Anita Chen, Albert Cano, Jeff Hu, Iris Chang, and Jonathan Liao to name a few folks attending the party. But I also got to meet many new people building cool startups in Taiwan or considering it. I believe 2025 will see even more people come to Taiwan for their businesses 🚀

That rounds out the year of travel thankfully, but I have one last newsletter edition to share for signing off in 2024. So chat again next week 🙌