Company Building with the Lord

Each entrepreneur brings themselves to the practice of company building, which includes their beliefs about themselves and their place in the world as a foundation on which to build. For some, this spiritual strength sustains us through the trials, tribulations, and sometimes triumphs that inevitably emerge along the journey.

This is a tricky topic to talk about in a blog because individuals and their beliefs are different. Before I continue, I want to acknowledge that this is a profoundly individual subject for each person. I am offering my own experience and perspective in hopes that it might encourage you on your own journey.

For me, as first and foremost a follower of Christ for the past 20 years, there is no separating my work as a startup leader from my spiritual foundation, for that spiritual foundation underpins every part of my life – and I started my entrepreneurial journey shortly after coming to faith. At root, there is a critical humility in my faith, an acknowledgment of my own brokenness before God that is shared by all people in the world that is a starting point for company building. Routinely remembering and acknowledging my own limitations helps me to seek first to continually bring my daily work under the umbrella of my faith and to continually and faithfully seek to serve my stakeholders to the best of my ability to accomplish my Lord’s purposes. These are principles and practices that help me to lead with integrity and faith as I seek to navigate, guide, plan, and produce work that is excellent and blesses those who come in contact with it.

• My faith guides my choices of what to work on.  My relationship with God relies on my foundational belief in the goodness and goodwill of God for the people of this world. My faith in God’s goodness inclines me to choose to partner with God in seeking to bless people through my work – and shape my choices of what to work on, what companies to found, what problems to seek to solve. I strive to invest my time, talent, and energy into work that can bless other people either by the products we produce, the way we produce them, the people who are invited to join in the journey of realizing a company’s potential. I avoid attempting to solve problems that are purely lightweight entertainment, that are destructive to the innate value of human beings, or are otherwise not making the world a better place. Although there may be easier types of companies to build, these guideposts have repeatedly led me into healthcare or renewable energy as domains for problem-solving via company building. All of the thought processes I described in my blog on Startup Genesis Choosing a Problem to Solve are guided by my values which are informed by my faith.
  
  
• My faith shapes my goals, choices, and practices as a company leader and builder. Company-building is a collaborative affair, involving many stakeholders, including co-founders, investors, team members, suppliers, customers, and others. All of these stakeholders have a direct or indirect relationship with me personally as well as with the company that I am leading. My faith demands that I engage in these relationships with as much integrity, good faith, and excellence as I am capable – and seek to build a company whose practices and processes reflect those same values. While executing with excellence and good faith means that I will seek to build a successful business that honestly fulfills unmet needs with high-quality products and services, which hopefully will be rewarded with exciting growth and shared benefits, it also means that I will not knowingly compromise our integrity, try to cheat the system, or make other unethical decisions even if I believe that somehow we might get away with it. In the end, I am accountable to a higher power that sees everything we do, even when we are alone.  And, in my experience, building companies this way does pay dividends in the long run.
  
  
• My faith gives me an inner confidence that I lean into when circumstances appear grim. This is not the (false) “prosperity gospel,” which is when someone believes that God has promised to make them successful according to the world’s or our culture’s standards.  I don’t believe that is what God promises his children. I do believe that he promises to love us, to be in a relationship with us, and to guide us, but, just as parents sometimes know better what would benefit their children and it isn’t always giving them the candy bar they crave or not providing the discipline they need, God sometimes says no to things we think we want.  For company builders, sometimes that means that experiments flop, potential investors/partners/employees opt out, sales do not happen, companies fail, and any number of other disappointments happen. Yet, over time I have seen that God is faithful in amazing ways even when the path winds more than I wish for or expect. Experiencing God’s faithfulness over time has deepened my confidence that even apparently grim circumstances can hold surprising silver linings, not least of which is reaching another level of depth in my relationship with God.
   
• My faith means remembering that just because I want something does not mean that it is best for me and others. My plans are imperfect. My vision is clouded. I do not expect to get everything I wish for. It helps to remember that when I think about how I want to pray through a situation, I should probably ask God to make sure we end up with the right result according to his comprehensive viewpoint, rather than my limited one. When I find myself wanting to pray for a particular outcome, I remind myself that, as Garth Brook’s sings in Unanswered Prayers, some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Although I would tweak that to be prayers answered no (which is not nearly as lovely lyrically!) since I do believe that God answers every one of my prayers even if the answers are sometimes “no” or “not yet,” instead of “yes.” My faith provides a confidence touchstone as I pray for the Lord to direct our paths and provide the outcomes that align with God’s good purposes. Knowing that I have prayed and put the outcome into God’s trustworthy hands gives me a resilient confidence that even when I get a negative answer, it is the best possible answer. And someday, I may even be able to see why!
  

When I am focused on building a company, it often helps to remember that I believe God has bigger purposes in mind than what I can see with my limited view and understanding of the total picture. An image that I find helpful is thinking of a big woven rug and imaging myself and my life as a single thread interwoven with others’ lives in that complex pattern that I cannot wholly perceive from my place amongst the other threads. It helps me to remember that God is the weaver, who has plans to give [me] hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11), even if I cannot see what that will be. Remembering that I believe God’s love means that even when I am hurting, afraid, or do not understand, I can trust that his plans, timing, and ways are ultimately perfect and more trustworthy than what I would imperfectly accomplish on my own (Psalm 90:17).  I wonder if I would even have the guts to embark on company building if I didn’t know I had such an omnipotent partner in the endeavor!