All of the general partners at WV are parents of school age children.  And like most parents, we spend a great deal of time with our children.  We take them to their various doctor appoints, swim lessons, gymnastics classes, and every other activity under the sun.  We also cook, clean, and generally care for all of their daily needs. And like most parents, we often wear ourselves out trying to be the best parents we can be.

Parenting also is one of those things that you often cannot see progress on a daily basis.  Your “victories” are clouded in the muck of just doing the job of parenting.  It is often not until years later that all of your efforts are rewarded (think of your child heading off to college, getting married, or finding that first job).  The destructiveness of bad parenting is also not often seen until years later.  Neglectful or ambivalent parenting effort manifests itself years later when the child reaches adulthood.  But either good or bad, you often have a hard time seeing the effects of your actions.

This is where parenting and being a part of a start-up is parallel.  You often work day-in-day out without seeing the huge victories.  You are often so far into the muck of daily operations that you do not see your daily wins and losses.  You often can’t decipher if you are winning or losing.  It is not until years later, that all of those daily victories add up to an acquisition, IPO, or stable cash flow company.

So, the next time you see your child’s smile or satisfy a custom support inquiry, think about the connection between parenting and entrepreneurism.

One of the toughest things for an entrepreneur to do is to cut ties from something they started. It does not matter if it is a positive severing of involvement (e.g. a personally profitable acquisition) or a bad ending (e.g. closing down a venture because it failed), entrepreneurs alway feel like their ventures are their children.

Unfortunately, these thoughts may be the most destructive of any that an entrepreneur may have. At Wasabi Ventures, we are all parents. We all have children that we love and adore. We would do anything for them and often we wear the rose-colored glasses of parenthood that show everything our children do as wonderful. And as entrepreneurs, we also love and adore our “children”, i.e. our companies.  But these emotions blind us from always doing the smart thing. Turning down a lucrative acquisition offer because we don’t want to see someone else run our creation or changing direction as the company is bleeding cash are both examples of this misguided love.

Luckily, there are solutions to this problem.  Having a great advisory board is probably the best remedy.  These independent mentors and assistants are detached enough from the blood, sweet, and tears of running the company that they can offer clear assistance.  Great advisory board members should be like great friends or relatives who can give you feedback about your children.  Sometimes it takes that independent third party coaxing to choose the correct path.