Can you build a family and a business at the same time? In his monthly column, founder-father Varun Bhanot offers a candid behind-the-scenes look at the wins and the whines of being a “Startup Daddy” today.
The most dishonest sentence you’ll see on LinkedIn
If you’re a founder who spends even a few minutes a week on LinkedIn, you’re probably well-versed in the world of celebratory fundraising posts featuring confetti emojis, eye-watering numbers, and self-congratulatory pats on the back.
Sometimes, I find these posts kick off with a dishonest (or perhaps more charitably, “misleading”) word – “‘I’ raised $X million.”
When I see this, I always find it disappointing, because in almost every case, it just isn’t true. In fact, I firmly believe that no one truly builds anything alone. Take me as an example – there are two teams I know I wouldn’t have been able to complete this Series B round without. In fact, I wouldn’t have even come close.
The first is the one you’d expect. The people at MAGIC AI – from the engineers who built the product from the ground up to the staff who ensure our community is well looked after. The group of subject matter experts we’ve got at MAGIC AI puts in months of unglamorous, unsung, and invisible work that I’d never hear a “yes” from any investor without.
While a successful raise is still a cause to celebrate, for the teams at startups, it’s often the starting gun for a period of bigger targets, harder quarters, and pressure to succeed. Which is why it’s all the more important to start losing that annoying ‘I’. But there’s a second team. When I closed our last big round, I was finishing slides from a hospital room while my wife recovered from labour and our daughter slept beside her.
I’ve had my second child this year, and the fact that I can experience the indescribable and infinite joys of being a father while also building a company is completely dependent on my partner – head of my “home” team – being the best mother my children could ever wish for.
The two teams hold you up in completely different ways, and you genuinely need both of them to succeed. I stand on the shoulders of both of them in different ways.
British business has long been soaked in the myth of the lone founder – the self-made individual who wills it all into being single-handedly.
In modern times, social media has accentuated that further by rewarding that ‘I’ over the ‘we’ that always, almost without fail, exists behind it.
So, in all honesty, ‘I’ didn’t raise $11m. Rather, we did – and it’s two very different ‘we’s’, carrying two very different costs and support loads. And with that in mind, the very least I can do is recognise the part these two indispensable teams have played in my journey.
This content is contributed by a guest author. Startups.co.uk / MVF does not endorse or take responsibility for any views, advice, analysis or claims made within this post.
