Back when the rivers froze and the cold winds blew, I warmed myself up with a crypto rating startup. In mid-February of 2022 I was a co-founder, ready for the road ahead, to take to the market and secure a foothold in crypto analytics. Earlier I worked with a group of EMBAs as part of NASDAQ’s January FinTech challenge; we mutually agreed to launch our project—crypto ratings—into a startup.

This was my first startup experience. Though I had earlier developed a fascination for entrepreneurship¹, finding it a viable third way beside the usual academia and industry routes and an opportunity to display all my strengths and play by my own rules, I had not fully immersed myself in a startup. I jumped on board, eager to break new ground, and most importantly, to experience that which was widely regarded as tumultuous, risky, and chutzpah-required.

By May 2022, I had experienced the ‘high ground’ of meeting with potential clients, networking and sharing crypto rating insights in MIT’s Bitcoin Conference, managing a tech team to build an MVP, and creating a business development plan that would capture a beachhead market. And now, I reflect on my first foray into entrepreneurship.

The concept of a startup is complex, wide, and formidable enough to deserve an analogy². We built it up, brick by brick, consulting existing blueprints along the way; we had a territory we called our own. I say a startup is a castle. All within the company are a family. We work, share experiences, and to a good extent live together. Our outer walls must be strong enough to maintain solid footing in the market of warriors, our diplomacy must be shrewd enough to attract customers and support, and our technology must be advanced enough to keep our defenses strong. On the other hand, the most fundamental aspect of castles isn’t the protection against, or courage when facing, the external. It’s maintaining the internal³. We need fighting spirit, loyalty, and a central purpose. We need that banner on our walls, in our hearts and minds, that proudly proclaims “All for one and one for all.”

And to your castles, and my castles of the future, I offer the following.

#1 Keep a strong, solid structure and vision for the startup. A castle requires cohesion, ritual, community. A most fundamental tenet of teamwork is that success can only be obtained with strong central chemistry. Purposes and principles must be first defined so that the resulting striving towards a goal can ‘trickle down’ from this higher source. Without an identity, a startup collapses, and any sense of purpose in working at the startup is shattered. Enemies wouldn’t even need to invade the castle; they watch it destroy itself and then take over without a fight.

#2 Put business development first, and let the tech adapt. Successful entrepreneurs are bound to tell you the same thing: it’s the market that makes money, and the tech tags along. Identifying a need, interviewing customers, grabbing clients, and pitching to VCs is what makes a startup a startup. Otherwise, it would be a research project. That’s why ideas alone can persuade VCs to invest pre-seed, but tech alone can’t. In entrepreneurship, the business sells, and is an end in itself. Technology is a means to an end. Technology makes the startup, but the business is the startup.

#3 Give your startup attention by sharing it widely. The basis of power and influence is not having a flashy, new discovery—in fact, it is something far more mundane: attention. During my time with the startup, I advertised it amongst my undergraduate friends, the Sloan community, and the Bitcoin conference attendees. As such, our startup became quite well-known among the MBAs and the undergraduate entrepreneurial community. When attention is marshaled correctly, great rewards will be reaped that allow the startup to hit and penetrate new corners of the market. In parallel, Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, and other great leaders projected such influence and are remembered millennia later because they were so good at entering the minds of their contemporary folk.

#4 When in a startup, consult professors, advisors, and wiser folks often. As I was by far the youngest of the co-founders, I gained information by watching ‘higher’ or older folks interact, observing their mannerisms and communication. Speaking with experienced startup leaders not only gave me insight into how to operate at higher levels; being in their presence implicitly provided me an internal confidence that everything will be alright, that the journey is worth it, and that the journey should be pursued to one’s fullest. It is blessed assurance, and it should be done often.

#5 Words are cheap and mean nearly nothing. Unless confirmed by action or official documentation, they might as well be lies told to soothe you, or enrage you, or move you in a certain direction like a chess pawn. Remember that "a false-hearted lover is worse than a thief⁴, because she’ll tell you more lies than the stars in the sky". At least the thief’s actions is (most likely) consistent with his words.

#6 Remember to put your startup into perspective every so often. Don’t hinge your entire existence on its success, and remember to check the bigger picture to see which direction you’re steering into. After all, while castles are reliant on their members, the guard, the cook, the trumpeter is not a brick in a castle wall⁵. They are composed of individuals who devote, by their own prerogative, their services to the community. And should you find that sufficient incompatibility exists between you and your startup, you can leave. A castle is not the Hotel California⁶, and neither is a startup!

Footnotes

¹ See “Topp-ing the Field” for an unexpected story on how enthusiasm for entrepreneurship was forged!

² That great or noteworthy things are analogized shouldn’t be too far out of left field.

³ For more internal-external philosophy, see my article ”Exinging and Inexing”

⁴ Lovely old song “On Top of Old Smoky”. As is sung, “For a thief he will rob you / And take what you have // But a false-hearted lover / Will send you to your grave”

⁵ though on an existential level, maybe we’re just another brick in the wall.

⁶ As the lyrics go, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!”