Episode 200： Qualities of A Great Founder
Episode Stats
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Summary
Great founders are people who have a big vision and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it done. In this episode, Pat talks about the 20 qualities of a great founder and how they can help you become a great one.
Transcript
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30 seconds, one time for the underdog, ignition sequence start, let me see you put em up, reach
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the sky, turn the stars up above, cause it's one time for the underdog, one time for the
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Today I'm going to talk to you about 20 qualities of a great founder.
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Because they're so unreasonable and demanding, a couple things happens.
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One, at the beginning stages of them starting their business, they lose a few people.
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So a person leaving them is like, listen, I don't think you're going to make it.
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That person doesn't realize that the prophet already sees what they're going, that the
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But the great founders, they can't help themselves by being unreasonably demanding.
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Point number two, others can coexist with a great founder.
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Because a founder realizes, listen, I can either be the celebrity guy and I run a small little
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business of seven employees and I'm so powerful, or if I want to really build a big business
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and scale it, I have to have other people that are smarter than me coexist around me who
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are also going to give me directions and areas I know nothing about, nothing about, which
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means great founders allow other people to coexist within them.
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Point number three, a level of determination higher than the rest.
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It's kind of part of the unreasonably demanding.
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They are so determined to get this thing done that they end up getting it done.
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Look, they're firm about their beliefs, but they're nimble about having somebody else
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Let me explain to you what I mean by they don't get swayed easily about their vision.
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There's a lot of negative stubborn people in the world that they're stubborn because
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These guys are positively stubborn and optimistic about the fact that this thing's going to become
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Matter of fact, some people get upset when they try to sway them.
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I remember when we first started a company, I got so many calls from relatives, friends,
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people that today say, Pat, I always supported you, but they did whatever they could to try
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You know, you're going through, you shouldn't be doing, everybody was trying to sway, but
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Even though it sounded crazy to a lot of people, positively stubborn.
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It may sound like initially negatively stubborn, but they know they're being positively stubborn
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because they bought into a vision that may not make sense to everybody else.
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Point number six, willing to share equity and victories with others.
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The bigger the talent you want, the bigger the piece they're going to want and the bigger
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the victory they're going to need to be a part of.
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So if you want me to let go of my great job that I have and the amount of salary I have
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and profit sharing and 401k, you want me to come and run with you, Mr. Founder?
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Again, founders who say no to it are ones who don't have that big of a vision.
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But founders that say yes to it and they realize who this person that's coming up and the talent
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that they want, they realize, my vision is so big that I'd much rather own 70% of a billion
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dollar company than 100% of a $100 million company.
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I'd rather own 20% of a $10 billion company than own 100% of a $5 million company.
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I want a lot of strong talent for us to build it as big as we want.
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Point number seven, willing to start all over again from scratch.
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What do I mean by willing to start all over again?
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When they're not afraid of losing everything, people lead better.
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Because founders realize, I have to figure out whether we can pull this off or not.
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I'm willing to start off, you know, start from scratch again.
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That level of, you know, determination of getting it and realizing I may have to start
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all over again, gets respect from competitors, gets respect from talent, gets respect from
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their employees, gets respect from their customers, gets respect from their vendors because they
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say, wow, this guy's really willing to push the envelope and he's pretty determined.
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The only way a great founder is going to be able to build a big company is at some point,
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they have to be willing to hit this breaking point where it's either sink or swim.
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I'm okay with that, but I'm going to fight like hell to make sure we make it out of this,
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Point number eight, comfortable having tough conversations with others.
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They're not uncomfortable sitting down with a team member or a vendor or a partner or a competitor
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or a lawyer or anybody and saying, listen, here's what we're going through.
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I don't think I like what's taking place right now.
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Tell me about what's going on with your department.
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They don't have a problem having a tough conversations because they're believers of what's taking
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They're going to have those conversations with others.
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You can't help these guys, but hear them sell 24-7.
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If you told them stop selling, they don't even know what that means because they're going
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to be selling 24-7 what they think their company is going to be doing or their vision
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Now, I know a lot of times people say, well, that person's a little bit, you know, it's
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He kind of will go to the gray area or he'll go to this area, he'll go to that area.
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People who stay with a founder for long enough of a time, they know that person may be crazy,
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but there are certain things they're not going to cross.
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If you cross the line there, how would you keep the best talent?
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How would you keep the best smart people around you?
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If you struggle with integrity, you're going to lose a lot of people.
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I think Warren Buffett said there's three things he likes, right?
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Without integrity, forget the other two, right?
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I want to say those are the three things that he had.
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The point is, to build a big business, you need people around you to trust you just as
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Number 11, good sounding board around them to show them their flaws and faults.
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Good founders have people that tell them, you're doing this wrong.
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Doesn't mean they take all the feedback all the time, but they're willing to listen to it
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By the way, let me explain to you what I mean by this.
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See, in the mind of a founder, somebody sits there and says, this makes sense.
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The founder's going to take anything personal because the whole thing is, if what you're
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suggesting in my brain clicks and it's going to help us get there faster, I don't care
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They're willing to do it because it logically makes sense for them to apply what the feedback
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that's being given to them by their advisory board around them.
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People are always wondering, how is this person at 15 different places at the same time?
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And that part about being a restless founder, a lot of people look at it and say, wait a
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Or, oh my gosh, he's always out there trying to grow what he's doing here.
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Because if I'm going against that guy, I've got to put that kind of energy to go up against
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I'm okay doing what I'm doing to be on his team.
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We're together going against the marketplace versus me facing a guy like that.
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And the reason why they're constantly recruiting everybody is because they can't help themselves
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Dinner, movies, texts, email, videos, articles, blogs.
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They are constantly selling where they're going.
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So they're constantly recruiting great talent because they keep telling the story over and
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Let me baptize this guy from a non-believer to a believer.
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This guy doesn't believe in what we're doing right now.
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This audience I'm speaking to, watching, none of them believe in what we're doing right now.
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I'm going to make every single one of them a believer.
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They're going around evangelizing their message to the world because they want to convert everybody.
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They want to convert everybody to believe in that what they're talking about is the truth
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This sounds strange to you, but go find a founder
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and spend a day with them and look what'll happen.
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They're in the converting business and they're constantly baptizing people into their vision
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A great founder learns how to stretch the dollar because at the beginning you don't have
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So you've got to figure out a way to make this $50,000 and make it seem like it's a quarter
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You've got to take this $100,000 and turn it into a million dollars.
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You've got to take this $1,000 and make it $15,000.
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They're very good at stretching the dollar and have it last longer.
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This is not something I can read in a book and say, I've got a great gut feeling.
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I don't feel good about this person we're working.
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I don't feel good about this person we want to do business with.
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You know how mothers have certain intuition about certain friends?
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That's how a founder has an intuition about somebody to go into business with or not to
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They're constantly painting a picture of what's possible if everybody comes together and
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Point number 18, they're very moody, very moody, but they have perspective.
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Let me explain to you what I mean by they're very moody, but they have perspective.
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They could go from happy to pissed off in a second, and they still won't fire you.
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You could be sitting in a meeting, and you may be thinking, it's over.
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30 minutes later, they come talk to you as if nothing happened.
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Why are we laughing, telling a joke right now in the kitchen?
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You are very, they're saying that to themselves.
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They're crazy thinking they don't need the help of people.
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Of course they know they need the help of people, but they can't help themselves.
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They can't help themselves of not being moody at times because they are so urgent about
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this thing becoming a reality that they want it to become a reality today.
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And to them, it's going to become a reality today.
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And so because of that, everybody else is always trying to catch up to their speed.
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Because when they don't get their ways, sometimes they get moody, but they have perspective.
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So they may lose it, but they're going to go back and be fine five minutes later, sometimes
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You'd be amazed how crazy it is when it happens.
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They're always in the, I mean, oh my gosh, can you imagine if this takes place?
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So people gravitate towards somebody that's always living in what-if this thing could
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So because, this is going to sound crazy, because they're always in the imagination phase of
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the future, what is possible, they're also typically the people that have the most anxiety
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and most panic because they're always living in the future.
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This doesn't make a lot of sense, but they're always thinking about, 10 years from now, we're
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And then boom, that turns into urgency, determination to want to get it done.
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And last but not least, they have interesting conversations with themselves.
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I'm not talking about, you're amazing, you're awesome, this is so great.
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You know why they're always talking to themselves?
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Because at the beginning, there isn't anybody else.
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So the conversation they're having with themselves, themselves, becomes a board here.
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So it's always, you don't see this moving, but this is moving all the time.
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It's always conversation, conversation, conversation, conversation.
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So you look at somebody, you look at a founder and their eyes is going, ding, ding, ding, ding,
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So founders, at this point, if you're listening to this, you're probably telling yourself,
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this sounds more like a crazy guy than it sounds like a founder.
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Because for somebody who's willing to put that kind of pressure and insanity into their
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A founder isn't necessarily the best, most important position in a company.
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A founder is simply the person that gives the company an opportunity to survive.
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A person could come in that's a great CEO, that could take the company to a whole different
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level, that that founder by himself or herself could have never done it.
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But a founder makes the company, the organization, the society, the city, the community, the country
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And for that, we give the founder the credit of being a founder.
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.