Foreword

Entrepreneurs seem to come in two varieties. There are those that begin small… perhaps with an invention close to home, building a product to meet a very specific need, either for themselves or for a friend in another business. They build the first iteration on a shoestring, and deliver it to their inaugural customer. They experience some success, and sell the product to other customers.

Before they know it, they have a fledgling business. The business grows without a rigorous business plan, board of directors, disciplined marketing, or any of the other accoutrements of mature firms.

These businesses grow easily up to the point where the entrepreneur can no longer personally manage every facet of the business. At this point, most of these endeavors struggle, hitting the wall without disciplined processes and procedures. A small percentage of these businesses make the transition to mature management processes of planning, implementing, and measuring. Many remain small businesses, staying within the founder’s comfort zone. And many die.

I’ve always called this business founder the “accidental entrepreneur”. They are driven by need. They create a product to solve a focused problem, but are rarely driven by a love for business in the abstract, or business as an art form. Often they are surprised at their own success, having begun with modest goals. They soon find that building the first product, taking on the role of inventor, is very different than the role of businessman. Most fail when they either can’t or won’t transition from building a product to building a business.

This book is not about the Accidental Entrepreneur. It is about the “purposeful entrepreneur”. The Purposeful Entrepreneur begins with a big idea. Not the solution to a small, focused problem, but an idea with larger scope and impact. From the very beginning the Purposeful Entrepreneur plans on building a business with impact. They think further ahead. They have visions of greatness. They are driven by scale. They want to change their piece of the world.

But most of all, every Purposeful Entrepreneur that I have known loves business. Business for business’ sake. As an art form. As the highest expression of the most complex strategic games that humans play.

So what does the Purposeful Entrepreneur do? They plan on bigness from the start. They plan on success. They plan on rapid success. But mostly they plan. They put the right team together. They raise capital. They execute quickly. They succeed or meet the Blue Screen of Death.

The world is littered with books about entrepreneurial success. Even books documenting high profile failures begin with wild success. But most attempts to create significant businesses out of dust do not end with entrepreneurial success. They end in anguish.

When the Accidental Entrepreneur fails it is a painful thing, but the sphere of people touched by the event is limited by the scope of the startup. When the Purposeful Entrepreneur fails… well, we are left with a much bigger hole in the ground.

Why is there so little written about entrepreneurial failure, with this the more common experience? For one, it takes a lot of courage, confidence, and borderline audacity to walk the path of the Purposeful Entrepreneur. When failure happens, it shakes one to the very core. Few want to talk about it, let alone write a book. Most retreat to the safety of traditional employment. A few lick their wounds and give it another go. Fewer yet eventually succeed.

“The Blue Screen of Death” is an important book. It captures the very essence of the gut-wrenching effort it takes to create a company from nothing. And even though it is fundamentally about failure, you will recognize that the difference between failure and success is but a few small decisions. Jawwad Farid, now a successful entrepreneur, emerged from failure more valuable than if he had succeeded. He learned the process, but also learned much about the inflection points that define failure and success. Jawwad is one of the few that took stock of the lessons learned, greatly expanded his personal capital, and gave it another go.

In the end, if you hunger success, it is most important to study failure.

Shane A. Chalke
CEO
Finetre Corporation