Celebrate Groundhog Day Every Day

Whenever I hear it's Groundhog Day, as I am sure with many Bill Murray fans, it reminds me immediately of Bill Murray's movie, Groundhog Day.  No matter how many times I see it, I still love it.   For those of you that have never see the movie, Groundhog Day "the holiday", is a non-event barely worth reflecting on, an elementary school classroom discussion memory at best. 

You might ask: what the #*$#@% does this have to do with entrepreneurship and venture capital?  Allow me to digress and change your perception of Groundhog Day.

For those of you that haven't seen it or need refreshing, Groundhog Day, the movie, (stop reading now if you haven't seen it or don't want me to ruin it or skip 4 paragraphs) is about a weatherman reporter, Phil Connors, and his reporting crew that go to Punxsutawney, PA.  The crew is covering the ironically named Phil, a celebrity groundhog.   With great pomp, the groundhog comes out to see his shadow on Gobbler's Knob, something that has been done since the late 1800s, true premise.   Phil Connors the weatherman gets pretty depressed that his whole life's ambition is now to watch a groundhog and do a weather story on whether or not the hog sees his shadow, which he does over and over each year as a reporter. 

Anyways, in the movie, Bill Murray's miserable character, Phil Connors, begins reliving the same ridiculous day, Groundhog Day, and all the things that happen that day.  Same clock radio song "But You're Mine" by Sonny and Cher wakes him up, same accidents happen, same conversations occur over and over and over again, until he can't stand it any more, and he tries to kill himself.  One one suicide attempt he actually is successful, only to find he still wakes up the next day to the same day, Groundhogs Day in Puxatawny, day after day, with the same events happening.   

At that point, after weeks and weeks, and months and months, of repeating the same day Phil decides, what the heck, with all that time, he might as well be happy, and he goes about bettering himself, and finding happiness.  Which he does, falling in love with a co-star Andie McDowell, playing Rita. Only then does he finally gets to the next day of his life, the day after Groundhog Day, to his great relief and happiness. 

Aside from the cosmic meaning of life, again: what does this have to do with entrepreneurship and VC?

Well, I think Phil the weatherman's experience is a reflection of what great entrepreneurs and VCs do over and over again to finally get it right.  They go through several stages of emotional grieving pattern when hit with a crisis: 1/ denial, 2/ anger, 3/ begging, 4/ grief, 5/ depression, and finally, 6/acceptance.  Not necessarily in that order.   But the faster they get through the cycle, the more likely they will be more successful.  Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs and the VCs that back them never make it to stage 6, acceptance.  In the end they find themselves stuck in one of the 5 prior states as their company folds around them. 

Negative events are a part of building a startup.  Products don't work.  Financing doesn't come in time.  Customers bolt or don't pay.  Key managers leave.  The economy or the sector you are attacking tanks.  The technology doesn't scale as expected and malfunctions.  Competition drives down pricing.   It's not about failing fast, it's about accepting the situation with as clear a view as possible and focus on getting to stage 6 as soon as possible.  It's not about finding blame or fault; it's about rising from the ashes like a phoenix, accepting it, and moving on to the next quickly, that makes for a successful entrepreneur in the long term.

To me, this is why having experienced managers and, yes, experienced VC investors (at least 10 years) is critical in growing a company.   The more experience, the less the turbulent day to day blowups in a startup fazes a veteran startup manager or investor, and the better they can be at contributing positive energy. 

In this business of building new businesses, and backing them, a lot of people will try to get you down, and tell you it's impossible, and to give it up, and by the way-- you suck monkey turds.  I am not saying ignore the critics, just turn it into positive energy.

The best entrepreneurs I know, founders like Sean Morgan who I backed in 2004 at Critical Media (the holding company for two very cool online video companies, Critical Mention and ClipSyndicate), have their critics.   Some of the criticism is well founded, of the business, and Sean, personally and professionally, as we all have our flaws.  But Sean accepts the criticism and moves on to build a bigger better and smarter company for it.  He turns negative energy into a volcano of positive effort, like nothing you have every seen.  And I think a big part of that motivated effort, is being able to quickly get through the normal emotions that entrepreneurs face and feed on that energy instead of being sucked dry of the positive energy. I am not saying don't have those negative emotions, but to try to channel that energy positively and quickly, and recruit partners, managers and investors that can do likewise.   

We are all human but we should all aspire to what Phil Connors did and Sean Morgan does: we should all celebrate Groundhog Day, every day of the year.