Often a start-up takes off with a whoosh, with great enthusiasm, an idea is shopped and everyone wishes the new team well.
The goodwill often results in generous gifts of time, expertise and materiel. Advisory boards, and independent directors provide their services for free or next to nothing.
On the one hand, the generosity and support is well-meant and heartwarming.
But on the other hand, it can breed a culture of entitlement and a lack of professionalism.
Directors show up because they are doing the organisation a favour, and people promise to do things but they don’t or their late because, it was a favour.
Start-ups usually don’t succeed overnight, and freebies offered initially in the hope of gaining real paying customers soon becomes tiresome when the initial glow fades and the wait for a hoped-for paying customer stretches from days, into weeks, and into months.
Start-ups need to get out of the charity-mode as quickly as possible and start paying wages and fees like a real business.
That means do what it takes to get the funding so that the start-up can conduct its activities as a business. Build your team of advisors and employees. Pay them. Get that first customer. Work out how to win more customers and scale the business. Reward for success.
This is vital to building a “we mean business” culture in your organisation, at all levels, within employees and also at the board table.
