If The Shoe Fits: Founder Love Is Blind
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.
In 1405 Chaucer enlightened us that “love is blind” and it’s been proven through both scientific and anecdotal evidence ever since.
In past centuries this referred to romantic partners and kids, but, as with most things, that, too, has changed in the Twenty-first Century.
Now researchers at Finland’s Aalto University have gone a step further.
(From the abstract) Here we tested the hypothesis that entrepreneurs’ emotional experience and brain responses toward their own firm resemble those of parents toward their own children.
Surprise, surprise — the results show that they are the same.
Anyone who has been around entrepreneurs, especially young entrepreneurs, won’t be surprised.
In my experience the more life experience founders have the more open they are to hearing critism about their startup baby.
However, that statement comes with a caveat.
It’s not just age or experiences that makes the difference, but the kind of experience — specifically raising kids.
Travis Kalanick may be 40, but he hasn’t been responsible for the shaping of a successful human being.
Mark Zukerberg may be raising kids, but they aren’t old enough to know how they’ll turn out, let alone what they will do along the way.
Just as parents believe their kid wouldn’t bully/drink/drug/cheat/steal, founders notoriously won’t listen to criticism of their vision/business model/culture/management.
Some, not all — obviously — but the number seems to be growing
It will be interesting to see if young, data enamored entrepreneurs will embrace this research.
Those whose kids are in their teens or older don’t need data, they have, or are getting, experience.
Image credit: HikingArtist
