No, this is not a play on the meme, "What X taught me about B2B SaaS" (although I was tempted to work it in somehow). Actually, this is a quick survey into my intrinsic motivations in entrepreneurship, but really life. I'm going to convey these by analogy with a personal anecdote that involved ramen. Now, I'm not the best storyteller so you'll have to bear with me as I try to narrate the experience.
The story
A few weeks back, my girlfriend and I dined at a well-known ramen restaurant (it's part of a chain called Ippudo). It's located in the Yerba Bueno neighborhood of San Francisco near downtown—so even though it was an average Saturday evening, you know the place was packed. We were walk-ins so we had to wait for a table to become available. Fortunately, it was just a few minutes before we were ushered to a tiny table for two, with a chair on one side of the table and a booth-style bench on the other. The physical scene is germane to the story, so I let me diagram the layout of around our table:
To the left and right of us were other identical tables, with the same seating arrangement. The tables were rectangular, with the longer sides perpendicular to the aisle, so naturally, more tables could fit in the space (you can tell management was trying to maximize the floor space).
A little bit about the atmosphere: the mood was frantic and kinetic, with the staff bustling around to hurriedly accept orders, serve dishes, and clean up. And this is one of those restaurants that has their kitchen exposed to the customers, so seeing the cooks work at a feverish pace added to the vibe. "Assembly line" energy is a good descriptor that comes to mind. Anyways, why am I going into this level of detail? Because understanding the anxious ambience is important to understanding the next part.
You should know that I have this weird habit of sitting beside my girlfriend anytime we dine outside. I prefer this to sitting face-to-face, which to me, can feel less intimate and more adversarial (like we're on opposite sides of a negotiation). So even though the space around us was limited, I decided to sit next to her. To give each ourselves comfortable room to eat, I physically picked up the table, and rotated it so that the longer edge was parallel to the aisle. Like so,
My girlfriend was shocked. She experienced a spike of discomfort, assuring me that the staff will not allow me to do this. I guess it's natural to react this way when its feels like you're inside a machine with seemingly rigidly-defined operations. I simply shrugged it off and replied, "we'll see." Rationally, the worse that could happen is that they make me return the table to its original configuration and sit in the seat facing my girlfriend. Maybe I also risked a little bit of social embarrassment due to the people around us. But to give you a peek into my emotional state, I was feeling an amusing sense of rebellion, and a pinch of thrill. Nothing close to the rush you'd get from jumping out of an airplane.
Anyways, we had various servers come take our order, bring our food, clear our table, etc. Some didn't even notice anything while others were perplexed in an amused way. But nobody complained. That's already a victory but there's more: as were waiting for the check, a couple arrived and sat at the table to our left (the couple that occupied the table before had wrapped up and left while we were working through our meal). Can you guess what happened next? Well, instead of sitting on opposite sides of their table like they're supposed to, they copied our configuration and sat next to each other, on the bench. Not going to lie, I felt another dose of triumph at establishing a new norm.
My motivations
Why did I make you suffer through that story? Well, I think it's a good (not perfect) encapsulation of what I and many others find satisfying about being a founder:
- Autonomy: There's nothing quite like having a thought or idea, and having the freedom to act on it. I had the idea to re-orient the table to fit my preference, and I did it. It's simple but I think there's a profound quality to having the agency to exercise your free will in a way that's authentic to you while not being encumbered by bureaucracy, the inertia of norms, or other people's expectations, etc.
- Risk: I'm not an adrenaline junkie by any stretch, but I do enjoy the rush of taking a risk. In this case, there were no real stakes. It was a benign social risk. I guess if I did face the rebuke of the staff, I would have heard "I told you so" until the end of time from my partner. So in that sense, I was risking my future sanity. Despite that, there's something fun about risk-taking (when the risks are measured).
- Growth: Risk probably feels good to some people because there's an expectation of reward (which is probabilistic but nonetheless, the anticipation is exciting). At the ramen restaurant, there was no tangible reward so it's hard to pinpoint the reward I was expected, but I think it has to do with gaining knowledge. Knowledge about oneself specifically. Knowing I can influence the world around me, in a way that defies established rules. Knowing you can—get ready for this wad of cheese—change the world around you is a powerful truth and even though I already have an appreciation for this wisdom from my life's adventures, reinforcing it every now and then feels great.
- Invention: Ok, just like the experience of personal growth is wonderful and empowering and all that, so is the experience of invention. Is shifting a table by 90 degrees something that's gonna get me a patent? No, but in the given context, it was novel. I believe creative self-expression is so ingrained in the human condition.
- Impact: Again, this is cheesy, but helping others is its own special reward. Who did I help in this situation? Well, I'd like to think the couple that was inspired by our seating arrangement had a more enjoyable experience thanks to the trail I blazed.
I wish I had a better personal anecdote that captures the full list of my drivers, but this one only misses a couple:
- Recognition: We all don't just want to do great things, we also want to be recognized for doing them.
- Wealth: I also selfishly want to become rich. (But let me warn you, being a founder is one of the worst ways to get rich on a risk-adjusted basis.)
I'm quite lucky to have found an outlet that helps me improve other people's lives by choosing inventions that force me to learn and take risks, while getting credit and building wealth. I'm also lucky to have a partner who is supportive of my endeavors. Even though the material rewards from my efforts in entrepreneurship have so far been limited, it still feels like I'm on the right path in life.