The Genius vs. The Executive
I just got done reading the Inc. Magazine article about Threadless. (Here’s a printer-friendly version. Read that: no ads and all on one page.) It’s an interesting business model. Artists post designs online and they are voted on by the community. Winning designs get printed on t-shirts, that are then sold to the community. What’s the punchline? The company is estimated to have sales of $30M last year and has yet to have a product flop.
The article used the Threadless business model as a living example of “user innovation” and how it will eventually change the face of business as we know it. Well, at least that’s what Eric von Hippel and a bunch of MIT researchers think, anyway. User innovation is a business model where end users create a company’s products, not the company itself.
I’m always a bit leery of articles where it seems like one success is latched on to as proof that an entire paradigm has been created, and I did find more than a bit of that in play in this article. In the end however, most of the article ended up being an extremely interesting overview of Threadless, not so much a dissertation on why we all need to change our business models. While it might be relatively easy at this point to introduce user innovation to the T-shirt industry, I’m not sure it is quite as simple in the automotive industry (BMW being cited in the article as a company that regularly gets thousands of user suggestions every year, yet only acts on one or two.)
Here’s where it got interesting for me though, with respect to entrepreneurship.
Whereas educators and investors quoted throughout the article talked in terms of “… a community company that happens to use T-shirts as a canvas,” and “… one of the first firms to systematically mine a community for designs, but everything is moving in this direction”; Threadless co-founder Jake Nickell’s appraisal of their success was simply “I think of it as common sense”. And that got me to thinking…
Genius or Hard Work?
So many times you read profiles of highly successful entrepreneurs, where the article gives them complete credit for being an innovative genius able to craft a new product or service that was exactly what the market was looking for at that moment. Or maybe, like the current article, it’s a new business model that proves “instantly” successful and scales to prove out a completely different way of doing business.
I’m not taking anything away from any of those entrepreneurs. They deserve all the success they achieve as we all know there is no such thing as an “instant” success. There are great ideas, but without lots of hard work that is all they are. The truth is it takes both the great idea and the hard work. There are very few $30M overnight successes. A great idea without the hard work is just a science experiment; and 80 hour work weeks without some “secret sauce” is just delusion.
I see a lot of potential high-growth business plans and get to talk to the entrepreneurs behind those plans. A large majority of them fall into two major buckets: The Genius and The Executive.
The Genius
The Genuis is the idea person, whether they be a research scientist, hobbyist inventor, engineer, or just a really smart person. It is to The Genius that we owe so many of our society’s technology breakthroughs and advancements.
Advantages of The Genius
The Genius’ Prime Advantage: The ability to combine creativity and intellect to imagine that which was not there before.
Other advantages
- No shortage of ideas to extend and broaden product concepts
- Generally comfortable taking risks
- Genuinely believes any technological hurdle can be overcome and will not rest until the solution is found
- Able to build substantial IP defenses around the core technology
Disadvantages of The Genius
The Genius’ Prime Disadvantage: The Genius suffers from SBS (Shiny Ball Syndrome), where focus is fleeting and generally rests upon the most interesting thing to The Genius at that particular moment.
Other disadvantages
- Little to no business acumen or understanding
- Many times unconcerned with profiting from their technology
- Typically horrible presenters
- Generally networked only within a small community of peers
The Executive
The Executive is the implementer, the administrator and project manager. The Executive thrives on the challenge of creating a thriving growing business from virtually nothing. The Executive’s business focus results in job and wealth creation.
Advantages of The Executive
The Executive’s Prime Advantage: Bringing a disciplined approach to establishing and growing the business.
Other advantages
- Highly-networked, often across sectors and disciplines
- May come with personal start-up capital
- Can often fill a variety of roles early on; e.g. sales, operations, financial, etc.
- Comfortable, confident and credible with investors, Board members and support organizations
Disadvantages of The Executive
The Executive’s Prime Disadvantage: The Executive’s drive to found and grow the business is often at odds with the flexibility, adaptability and patience required of a start-up.
Other disadvantages
- Risk-averse
- Frustrated by The Genius’ apparent lack of interest in making money
- May try to grow too quick too soon
- Ego may get in the way of accepting coaching
Final Thoughts
Obviously, I have caricatured The Genius and The Executive for the purposes of an entertaining blog post. While “the names have been changed to protect the innocent”, the advantages and disadvantages are present in many of the entrepreneurs I coach. One of the first activities with a new entrepreneur, past evaluating their business concept, is getting a sense for which end of the scale they fall on and assessing their advantages and disadvantages. Founders have many tasks on their to-do list when just starting a company, but finding talent to fill in the other end of this spectrum is generally high on my list if they are to succeed.
What about you entrepreneurs out there? I know you’re reading. Which are you, a genius or an executive? Do you agree with my assessment? How have you compensated for your disadvantages and complemented your advantages?
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