Bootstrapper.com - Confessions of Serial Entrepreneurs

There is a unique breed of entrepreneurs that are brilliant idea guys, a lot of them know how to execute pretty well too. They tend to have one fatal flaw - they are the worst HR managers in the world - for themselves (they usually have good noses for other people’s situations) but when it comes to choosing partners or executives we can be pretty shitty. We tend to pick people that have good credentials or “check out” without doing any real background research. We smell the idea and not the person and romanticize ourselves into beleiving they are perfect. Serial entrepreneurs are also the type to start companies on a whim. I’ve done it, just said fuck it, do it and invested X dollars into building a new company. A very high % of these fail but its our curse. We love the smell of a good idea. Serial entrepreneurs tend to make a lot of money for other people, partners, investors, clients etc…but tend to get fucked ourselves…we somehow end up missing things and people take advantage of us. I’ve had a partner fuck me so hard it almost took me from being worth $30,000,000 to bankrupt almost every night. I admit I am a bad judge of business partner character!

Now there’s a way to counter this: work with other entrepreneurs that have also suffered from a stab in the back, take longer to analyze an idea, hire people to investigate partners ($1000 can buy you a fucking amazing background check) and work with people that offer you good advice free or that you talk to and are friends with (not some guy you just met at a party or online - gasp!) and built rapport and thus have a reason to trust. I like working with people that have without asking them offered me a favor in the past. It’s a real simple philosophy I have learned after being burned many many times. Very few people are nice and offer to help without asking and actually offer good help, those are good people, work with them.