Start With “Why Not?”

When I was starting my company, a lot of people recommended I read Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why”. It was imperative to discover the reason why you started your business if it was to have any meaning. You simply couldn’t make good long-term decisions if you didn’t understand the deep motivation behind everything you do. 

Every aspiring entrepreneur appearing on Shark Tank is asked about the reason they started the business. Usually it’s a tragic story of death in the family or a sweet moment of honoring a loved one who took care of them as a child. But it leaves me wondering if I’m doing it right, because I don’t feel the need to avenge anyone with my business.

At the time, I wracked my brain trying to discover the “why” behind my business. What does it mean? Why did I start it? Was I trying to challenge the status quo like Apple? Did I do it to make my father proud? What a waste of brainshare to think about these things!

The obsession with “Why” robs us of the joy of accomplishment

There’s an unhealthy pressure on business leaders to paint their business into a larger story of humanity. You are not just making coffee, you are nurturing the human spirit. You don’t just build software, you are “potentially” saving lives. You are not just testing blood, you are serving justice around the world. And in one widely mocked example: you are not just making a smart lock, you create a relationship between a customer and their front door. 

The “why” statements have little to do with the direction of the company or its values. They are merely marketing tools.

The 2010 movie “The Social Network” ascribes Mark Zuckerberg's spite for his ex-girlfriend as the initial motivation for creating a “Facemash.” I love his response: “They just can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.” 

Work itself has meaning

This is the antidote to overthinking: believe that work itself has meaning. If you are creating a product or providing a service someone else needs, that’s the meaning. You are already participating in the great story of humanity by caring for their needs. The hyperbolized language of the global significance of someone’s business only exists to serve the CEO’s ego or to look good on a magazine cover. It has no ground in reality. Good is done locally.

I have decided to give up on the grand narrative for my business. Instead I find significance and joy in my team, in the people we get to help with our skills, and in the work itself. I love building digital products, I love to see how they serve people by automating work they hate to do. It’s a thing of beauty. 

Good is done locally

It doesn’t mean my business is void of meaning or doesn’t serve the global good. Of course it does, but it does so locally. Apart from caring for our clients, I’m also providing jobs to 20+ families, I’m creating a solid middle class in economically struggling Ukraine, I’m giving opportunities for young people to start in a highly creative field. It’s certainly changing lives, but that comes as a byproduct of us acting locally.

My advice is this. We have to learn to love the process, because if we don’t enjoy what we do, there’s no amount of higher purpose that will make us happy spending 40+ hours a week at the job. Life has a way of rewarding us beyond what we set out to do, but it requires focus on our primary local goals.

In other words: Start with “why not?”

If it’s something you love to do and someone else needs, that’s your business. No need to wait for a sign from above or a higher calling. Those things will come when you are already engaged in your primary work.