A Tall Order

I've started two companies in my career and I don't know that, given the chance to go back in time to start them again, I'd do it. I know that I'd be able to make much more progress, much more quickly than I did the first time around but unless you have started a company, you just don't know the toll that it takes on you.

Yes, it can be rewarding, but fundamentally, founding a company requires a certain type of delusion because if you really knew the stress and hardship it would cause, you'd be crazy to do it.

And then it becomes slightly addictive, the thrill when something actually goes right (like one decent golf shot in round) keeps you coming back for more. When you win a competitive deal, or a portfolio company lands the marquee customer, or you recruit a new investor into the fund. The more experience you gain, and the more you withstand on the way through, the more you realise how you can keep going. It tests you.

Most non-founders think that people start companies to make money and be their own boss. Given that most companies fail, and most companies never achieve the levels of success that they set out to, it is clear from the numbers that the overwhelming majority of founders would earn more if they got a job and collected their CPI wage increase every year.

Being a founder means too much familiarity with the stress that constantly fizzes under your skin and learning to overcome phenomenal amounts of rejection but mustering the energy to go again. It is exhausting. Sick leave doesn't mean anything – you just work through, and most founders I know have taken substantial pay cuts along the way when cash is tight.

How many times have you heard, when explaining what you're working on, that "Oh yeah, I had that idea years ago," from someone who thinks having an idea is comparable to building a company…. Fucking daft (but you smile and nod).

Founders inflict this upon themselves, and no-one is asking for any sympathy. It is just the reality of what it takes to build a company. You have to be a little deluded and a lot tough.

So why do it? This is better explained by Theodore Roosevelt, who came up with one of my favourite quotes…

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy, nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat".

The sense of accomplishment that you feel after successfully completing a task that required dedication, commitment, and sacrifice is one of the most satisfying that you can have. The harder the task, the greater the satisfaction.

Today marks a new chapter for us. Today Skalata becomes Tall Order.

A tall order is difficult to accomplish, it is a formidable challenge, perhaps even a Herculean task. But it is possible. We recognise that building a great company is a tall order and we're seeking the founders that are attracted to all that it entails, rather than deterred by it.

We do all this because it is a tall order, not in spite of it.