Chapter 10: What’s Your Superpower?
Finding the Edge Only You Have
superpower, unique advantage, strengths, differentiation, personal edge, founder identity
Everyone Has One
Okay, now the other thing that I would tell you — and this is the last — you don’t have to be good at everything, nor can you be. Right? You’re gonna have a superpower. Whatever that superpower is, that’s the only thing you’ve got to figure out. Are you making a list of things I told you you’ve got to figure out? I’ve suggested you should figure out superpowers — that’s one of them.
As a solo entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur in a small organization starting a small company, you can’t be good at everything. You have to be open to understanding concepts in pretty much every discipline. But you’re gonna be good at one or two things.
I was good at business development and marketing. I was good at communicating the message. I was pretty good at the business-planning side of things. I’m a terrible lawyer — I’m awful at it; you don’t want me as your lawyer. I’m terrible at HR. I don’t like HR actually — they put me in charge of HR for a while, like, really? Do I have to? Everybody had to, so I had to do that for a while. Really hard.
It’s good to be exposed to all of it, and it’s good to work cross-discipline and have a respect for every single discipline. But you’re gonna figure out what you’re really good at. You might be really good at getting out and telling the story. You might be really good at the product-development side of the idea and moving the product forward. You might be really good at finance. You’ve got to figure that out.
Finding Yours
And then you’ve got to surround yourself with people who are good at the other stuff. CEOs have a lot of different core skills — they’re not all the same. There’s the marketing CEO, there’s the finance CEO, there’s rarely the HR CEO — I guess they exist. You’ve got to figure out who you are and what your superpower is and what you really like doing, and then never be afraid to bring in good people who are good at the other things.
One of the smartest things I ever did — with actually the very first check-processing operation — is I hired a guy. At the time I was, I don’t think I was thirty, yeah, thirty. I hired a guy who was like fifty. In my mind — really old. Not now, but in my mind: this guy’s really old. I hired him because he knew the business backwards and forwards and knew how to make it work. It was the smartest thing I ever did. We had a great partnership for as long as we worked together. He made that business work. He made it possible for me to go out and do the front-facing stuff that I was really good at — the business-planning stuff — and he stayed back and made the operation work.
Don’t ever be afraid to do that. You’re not giving anything up. You’re not admitting defeat. You’re not admitting a weakness — actually, you’re admitting a strength. You’re saying: I don’t do that; I need somebody to do that. Find your superpower, and then find people with the superpowers you don’t have. They exist.
The other thing I’ll tell you is: you’re bringing people in, and these are people you’re going to spend a lot of time with. Another good piece of advice from one of my favorite bosses was, “I hire people I’ll go out and have coffee with in the morning.” If you can’t do that with somebody, you’ve got to ask yourself: is that the person I want to spend time building this business with? Because you’re going to spend a lot of time. I had great relationships with my CEO, my CFO, the product guy — we got along great. We’d have coffee in the morning, we’d have dinner at night. If you can’t have those kinds of relationships, you probably want different people.
You want to find somebody different, because you’re going to spend a lot of time with them. And the other thing that makes that easier: you’re going to have difficult conversations with them as well. Having difficult conversations with people you get along with is generally easier than with people you don’t get along with.
The people side of this is probably the hardest thing that you’ll do. The other stuff is all doable — and I’m not going to say it’s easy, because it’s not — but there’s more frameworks for it. The people side of things is just a softer skill. And if you’re gonna be an entrepreneur and build a business, you’re gonna have to be good at that too, because you’re gonna have to work with them and trust them. And that’s not easy. At some point you’re gonna have to let someone go — I mean, that’s the worst part, right? That’s gonna happen too. I hope I never have to do that again. I never got used to it and I never liked it, and you shouldn’t — but you have to think about it from the right perspective. Hire smart people who complement you, let them do their thing, and they’ll let you do your thing, and the business will have a better chance of succeeding.
Putting It to Work
Well, that’s my last bit of — if you want to call it wisdom — wisdom. Happy to take questions.
[Student asks how Dan finds people to build a team with — through network or other means]
So generally what I would do is start with people I knew. People, right? It was rare that I would find someone that didn’t have a connection to someone I already knew. That’s generally a good way to start. Now it can happen that you’ll just find someone — put it out, get resumes, go through resumes, interview a lot of people, and I have found great people that way too. It can happen either way. For me, it’s kind of a feeling — whether I can work with you or not, whether you’re a good fit or not. I was generally pretty good at it. Everybody makes mistakes, but I was generally pretty good at it.
Maybe the best way is through your network. People you know, know people. I would also say: because you’re here at Tech, keep in touch with your classmates. They’re gonna meet people — lots of people. The Tech alumni are a pretty good network of people who know people, and that’s a good way to start. And sometimes it’s just, you know — random. It’s the gut feel. It’s the toughest part of this.
[Student asks: did you always think of yourself as an entrepreneur, or did it take time to realize that’s what you were doing?]
It took me time. It did — it took me time. Two things helped. One was I had the early experience of being on the accounting side of the business, essentially doing the books, and realizing that really wasn’t for me. And then it was a boss who looked at me and — trusted me, for some reason, which I’m still not sure why — and thought that I could pull this off and encouraged me to keep going, and supported me in doing it. He knew he needed it done, he knew he didn’t know how to do it, and he saw something in me that said he’ll figure this out.
It was a gradual kind of thing — and then it was like, oh, I could do this. But it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t: I left here and came here as, I would call myself, an extreme introvert. I left here as an extreme introvert. I would still classify myself as an introvert, but I can now do extrovert too. None of this was natural — but I’m glad it happened. I’m really glad it happened.
[Student asks about firing people — how to be compassionate while still doing the hard thing]
I will be honest with you, as I think I’ve been throughout. In some conflicts — like contract negotiations — I can be brutal. Just absolutely unreasonable and brutal to get what we need to get. But when it comes to dealing with individual people, I’m a softy. It’s horrible. I hate it, even when it’s justified. I agonized over it even when it was the obvious thing that had to happen, with good cause. It was really hard.
And then you just kind of screw up your courage, be as compassionate as you possibly can, and deliver the news. It was always the hardest thing to do. That CMO job — where I was told my first day we’re going to close the mortgage bank, and not thirty days later we let a hundred people go — that was the worst day of my career. And I still obviously think about it, because it was awful.
Be as compassionate as you possibly can. Be as empathetic as you possibly can. And the other thing: it should never be a surprise. Don’t just walk in and fire somebody. It’s a process — you’ve got to be coaching all the way. You’ve got to be saying, “Look, if we don’t get this here, then you’re not going to be here.” Be upfront about those things. Make it really clear what needs to happen to stay. Never make it a surprise.
Those hundred people we let go — that was a complete surprise, and the whole thing was just a mess in a lot of different ways. But if you’re dealing with an individual and their performance, talk to them about it all the time. Coaching should happen every day. In sports, it’s happening in real time — business should be about the same way.
[Student asks about public speaking — what tools helped, and how to not let empathy get in the way of hard decisions]
Two great questions. When I was doing my first really big project — the check-processing project — we had to go out and sell it. My boss said, “Look, you don’t have to go out and do this. You don’t have to make the presentations; I’ll do it. But it’d be really good if you would.” He encouraged me, he pushed me, he helped me develop the speaking style and the presentations. I had another colleague who was really good at it — he helped me too. I had a lot of mentors who pushed me. And then once I got doing it, I was like, “Oh, this is kind of fun — I kind of like it.”
But it was not easy. It was the thing that just made me break out in a cold sweat. And now I obviously could just get up and do it. It’s one of the most important skills you have to have as a business person, because you’re going to get called on to speak. It wasn’t easy — the first big presentation was in front of a hundred people and I was like, “Oh boy, this is not going to go well.” Now I love it.
The other question: how do you not let empathy and compassion get in the way of doing what needs to be done? You have to make a decision that’s right for the business — and that’s not always necessarily what’s right for the individual. But you’re there to manage the business, and you kind of have to divorce yourself from the people part, without losing the empathy side of things. It’s really hard for me. As I said, I hope I never have to do that again.
[Student asks about audience comprehension — how to bridge the gap between knowing your topic well and meeting people where they are]
Fair question. You’re right — if you know the stuff, public speaking is pretty simple. And one of the great secrets of public speaking is: your audience doesn’t know what you’re gonna say. So if you forget to say something, only you know that.
If they’re not grasping it, if they’re not understanding it, another part of preparation is analogy. “It’s like this — oh, okay. I’m not explaining this well. Maybe it’s like this.” Or you ask a question that will help them frame it in a way that works for them, and then you work on that. Good public speaking is being good on your feet — that comes with time. I’m not afraid of questions, not afraid of hecklers, not afraid of much of anything. That does come with time. Preparation helps; practice helps a lot. But actually thinking about analogous things is really helpful. One of my superpowers is I can draw an analogy pretty quickly — “Oh, it’s like this” — and that kind of helps get past some of that.
[Student asks about people who wrap their identity in their startup — when it becomes who they are, not just what they do]
That happens a lot. It becomes not what they do but who they are. This gets to a real important thing: is this who you are, or is it what you do? I would draw that distinction. This is what I do — it’s not who I am. There are people for whom it becomes who they are, and I would start talking to them about it: “Look, I know you’re into this and you’re passionate about it — that’s great. But don’t make it who you are. Make it what you do.” Because it makes it really hard to let go.
I don’t have any problem letting go. The big operation — it’s like, yep, it’s time for me to go, because I can’t add anything else here. I said to my client: I can’t do anything else here; this was fun; it’s why I did it. But there’s other stuff to go do. If you have those people, start having that conversation with them — and always have that conversation with yourself. If it’s not a lifestyle business, it’s not who you are; it’s what you do. Keep that line real clear. It makes a lot of things a whole lot simpler.
[Student asks: if you could go back to when you graduated from Tech, what would you do differently to have more free time?]
Great question. Two things. I might have started at a really big company — to learn how to be a really good operator early on. Spend three or four, maybe five years learning operations at a really big company, because big companies are really good at what they do. They’re really good at running businesses. You’ll learn a ton. I didn’t do that. I did the big-company thing at the very end, and it was great — but it’s not as helpful as it would have been earlier.
The other reason to do the big-company thing first: get that solid foundation and experience, and then go start your own company or be a consultant. You’re in control of your schedule. I’ve retired from my own consulting company. I don’t know that I’ll pick up other clients, but the greatest thing about that was I could work when I wanted to. If I didn’t want to work, I didn’t. If I was here at the university, I’d say: I’m not available this week. It’s incredibly freeing.
If you have that kind of experience and confidence — with the understanding that you’re always going to have to sell more business — you’re in control. When you work for someone else, they’re going to write you a paycheck, but they’re going to demand your time. If you’re on your own, you’ve got to fund yourself, so you’re always going to have to be selling. But you’re in control of your schedule.
I wish I’d done that earlier. I really do. Because I love being in control of my time. Free time is really important. If I had it to do over, I’d have had more free time. A lot of people my age — or getting to my age, maybe a little older — don’t retire because they don’t know what else to do. I’ve got two lifetimes worth of stuff to do; I’m going to run out of time. Be that person. Always be curious. There’s all kinds of interesting things to do that don’t involve work. Be that person. Make sure you’re interested — it makes life more. Okay, okay.
Thank you — thanks for having me.