Page 33 - 6 Secrets to Startup Success

12 6 SECRETS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

By the time she visited a center in King’s Mountain, North Car-
olina, she had been searching and puzzling for many months, looking
for a model that made sense. She drove up a long driveway to the fa-
cility, stunned by what she saw. “It was awesome, on a huge piece of
land, with a huge new building,” she remembers. “After taking the
tour, talking with the director—just seeing the place, the newness and
the cleanliness of it—I looked at her and I said, ‘This is it. I’m going
to do this.’” For the first time, Lynn could visualize her facility: how it
would look and feel; how staff and guests would move about; and how
struggling families would find relief within it. Although she had a
number of compelling reasons to pursue her concept, from honoring
her mother to addressing what she thought to be a gaping hole in the
senior care market, this was the moment when all the pieces first came
together into a workable whole.

THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Like Archimedes leaping from his bath, there is a point in every
startup journey when hesitancy melts away and there’s no turning
back. This might take the form of a high profile, catalytic event, such
as Mark Kahn telling his boss in a French casino that he was quitting
his job or Lynn Ivey buying a piece of land on which to build her fu-
ture center. But this is not always the case. Sometimes, the corner
turned is a psychological one.

Eleven months before J.C. Faulkner left First Union to start his
new company, he made a fateful decision while sitting in the office of
a trusted mentor, Doug Crisp. Doug, who had hired J.C. into the bank
twelve years earlier, was trying to lure him into joining his leadership
team in a new bank division. J.C., however, politely turned him down.
He said that he appreciated the offer but didn’t think a move was right
for him at that time. “I haven’t accomplished everything I need to do
in my current job,” he recalls saying.

“Really?” Doug asked. It sounded fishy. He pressed on, asking
question after question, refusing to take no for an answer.

But J.C. wouldn’t say yes.

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