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150 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

startup journey. Feel-good conversations are like comfort food for new
venture teams, reinforcing early beliefs and feeding optimism and
confidence. When adversity intrudes, as it always does, teams not ac-
customed to skillfully confronting reality are ill prepared to respond
swiftly and smartly. Passion-trapped founders tend to panic instead
of lead.

This chapter focuses on how to minimize the overly optimistic
distortion of reality that can occur early in the venture formation
process, avoid getting trapped in the feel-good bubble, cultivate clarity
of thought and discussion, and encourage candor and healthy debate,
all while maintaining the positive energy and enthusiasm for your
venture. Investing in these outcomes is important, not only as a pre-
ventive mechanism, a kind of insurance policy against the risks of
unchecked passion, but also as a sound competitive strategy. For ven-
ture teams that are smart and disciplined enough to cultivate it, in-
tegrity of communication can provide a differentiating advantage
in the typical entrepreneurial marketplace, where barriers to entry
are often low and success requires outthinking, outhustling, and out-
managing the competition.

Integrity of communication is a straightforward concept, easy to un-
derstand yet hard to master. It means embracing the raw reality of
your venture, in all its glory and with all its warts. It means that any-
thing is discussable, that conversations include relevant data and opin-
ion, and that new information is welcomed without regard to whether
it is “good news” or “bad news.” In a high-integrity atmosphere, there
is no such thing as bad news, because every piece of data adds to a
more complete picture, a clearer, stronger base from which to decide
and act.

No One Is Immune to Reality Distortion

During the launch and early growth of D1, J.C. Faulkner and his
management team spent a lot of time together in very close quarters.
They met every Monday afternoon for five or more hours to scruti-
nize the past week’s accomplishments and the coming week’s plans.
They debated decisions, monitored results, and held each other ac-

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