Employees Are From Mars, Entrepreneurs Are From Venus

When I left American Express almost six years ago to start IdeaFaktory, I fantasized that I'd spend my days birthing big ideas - and nights sipping Bacardi poolside with Puffy, P-Diddy, Diddy, Sean John...one of those guys. Instead, what I got is the best and worst of four very different worlds: Complex corporate innovation clients. Hopeful startup partners/acquisitions. Being an overworked entrepreneur. And jousting with academics – or anyone with a keyboard and lots of free time - in the treacherous world of writing, speaking, podcasting and 'influencer’-ing. Each is hard on its own. All four at once, can be soul-crushing.

It wasn't until I started advising small business owners for the upcoming GrowthFaktory podcast, that I finally confronted what I'd become: a therapist. An unlicensed, unwitting, business-whisperer. Everyone talks a good game about “innovation” and “disruption”, but the world demands less and less of it. What it needs – and what I found myself doing - is intervention. Making sense of a world that didn't. And it did as much for me as for the people and companies I helped. Suddenly, it made sense why two of my most popular pieces were “The Economics of Happiness” and “Happiness Will Not Be Downloaded”. As I said in that first one, “Happiness is the last thing left to innovate.” (To quote myself... The narcissism... I know.)

Not to let a perfectly good revelation go to waste, I hit the road with the most meaningful workshop I've ever done, “Don’t Build a Business, Build a Religion” (next one is at Small Business Expo in NYC Thursday 5/11). After speaking with hundreds of owners, I did what I do best – stereotype. Uh, profile. I mean, segmentation! (Those marketers, so sneaky! What's illegal at airports and job interviews is standard procedure everywhere else.)

This chart is my attempt to capture the dreams and perspirations of the people in my four worlds – and where I see hope and opportunity. Naturally, I wrapped it in the warm familiarity of a SWOT analysis. Below are my thoughts on each. I’d love to read yours in the comments.

Corporate Employee

Working for a corporation is like marriage. If you take it for granted, it deteriorates fast. When I created The 9 Corporate Personality Types, it was an exercise in tough love. If there’s one truth that binds them all, it’s a hunger for meaning. Once you float in a pyramid of thousands, it’s easy to lose the plot. So many exist as middleware - shuffling emails and slides from meeting to meeting. It’s Sisyphean. 

"Stability lulls you into mistaking it for security."

What employees lack in meaning, they gain in stability. That check comes twice a month. Predictable, steady. It covers the house, 2.3 kids, and Instagrams from Barcelona. But in the undercurrent, there’s a quiet unrest. Stability lulls you into mistaking it for security. Security eludes most. Numerically speaking, I was 1 of 60,000 employees at American Express. It would have to be a hell of an earthquake - or I’d have to be the greatest wizard in InnovationLand - to truly feel safe. And all the work you do inside those four walls is owned by someone else - and largely anonymous. You can be the world’s greatest genius, but you’ll also be the quietest. If the tide shifts, you’re working LinkedIn and resume bullets, just like everyone else. Proving yourself, like a newborn.

I see opportunity in tangibility, learning, and helping others. Not every company is willing or able to manufacture it. It’s hard. But people need to see their contributions and feel their progress. Anything less is PowerPointless.

[More specifics on how to do this here and here and here.]

Freelancer/Influencer

More and more people are being rattled loose from corporate employment. Even Chinese companies no longer need hordes of workers building microwaves that may or may not be spying on Kellyanne Conway. And people aren't interested in the skilled jobs that do exist. After all, there’s no America’s Next Top Welder.

For many of the disaffected, the first stop is freelancing. Depending on your skills and determination, freelancing can be more free than lancing. With a coveted set of skills, like coding or industry expertise, you can live anywhere, set your hours, and make bank without answering to The Man – or managing employees.

Unfortunately, many freelancers find themselves squeezed from all sides. They’re forced to find gigs, do the work, manage everything from billing to benefits, market themselves, be thought leaders, and deal with "sharing" platforms. Marketplaces like Fiverr, Upwork, Handy, TaskRabbit, 99Designs (I can do this all day) keep inching prices towards zero, turning people into commodities. 

There’s opportunity in leverage – creating loose affiliations or virtual companies of multiple providers who can divide up the grunt work and make smart use of platforms like Freshbooks, Infusionsoft, and JustWorks, to free time, develop a more attractive portfolio, and gain bargaining power with bigger clients. Eventually, they can break free from meat-market platforms.

Startup Founder

There’s nothing more thrilling or infectious than a dreamer. Corporations get so infatuated by startups that they move in together, hoping to rub against them long enough to conjure a genie.

Many founders I've met are young, educated optimists with the hubris of those guys flying through the Grand Canyon in Wingsuits. Despite the probability of becoming Canyon pizza, founders are drawn to Silicon Valley the way budding starlets are to Silicone Valley. But like the forty-year-old waiter chasing DeNiro with his Ketchup-stained script, the game can pass you by. And once a founder takes other people’s cash, it’s an all-or-nothing trajectory that few, besides Zuckerberg, ever get to control.

The opportunity for young founders is introspection. It’s hard when success requires stubbornly pushing through every rejection and obstacle. The ones who listen, find experienced, trusted advisors, and know what they don’t know can have amazing advantages.

Small Business Owner

I have incredible empathy for small business owners. They rarely have the safety nets of startup founders (advanced degrees, tech skills, connections, access to capital, and often affluent families). Owners tend to be older and value being their own boss, above all else. They crave freedom. The ones I've met with successful businesses, have a pride unlike any other. It’s a mix of satisfaction, gratitude, and humility - forged by years of emotional and financial highs and lows.

Like founders, owners have no clear line between work and identity. But there are no clear exits, not at 100x. In fact, many have businesses so reliant on them, truly disconnecting is impossible. And most are not well differentiated or they're too labor-intensive. They exist on this invisible fault line between large scale corporate efficiency and startup automation.

In the early stages, an aspiring owner’s biggest obstacle is themselves. It’s self-sabotage. There are a million ways not to start. To delay. To rationalize. But ones they push through, they need more tools, financing options, and substantive advice from people who get their struggle. They also need networks to connect them to growth opportunities. It’s what we’re solving for at GrowthFaktory.

Don't forget to sign up for the GrowthFaktory podcast and apply to get help with your business on the show. You'll also a video of my talk “Don’t Build a Business, Build a Religion” when it's out.

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Bio: Steve Faktor is CEO of IdeaFaktory growth & innovation consultancy and founder of GrowthFaktory growth guide for small business. He’s the provocative host of The McFuture Podcast, popular keynote speaker, and LinkedIn Influencer. He is regularly featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, NPR, Wall Street Journal, among others. Steve is the former head of the American Express Chairman’s Innovation Fund, senior executive at Citi and MasterCard, and Andersen consultant. You can follow him via email newsletter, LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.