I first heard this framing from Avnish Bajaj of Matrix Partners India (aka Z47)
And it stayed with me. Subconsciously, I started classifying every founder I met in one of these two buckets.
Are you going after a clear and present gap in the market and executing like a machine ? Or are you hell bent on changing (a small part of) the world, because you don’t like how it is?
With a decently large database (in my head), I can now confidently say that mercenary folks have a much (much) higher probability of building profitable businesses. And for good reason (tldr: they don’t try and play god. They accept reality as it is).
The missionary folks, on the other hand, usually stay small and barely make ends meet. Think super-honest neighbourhood cafe or that small (dying) curated bookstore.
Which begs the question - why? Why doesn’t purpose scale? And what hope do we have of building a better world if it doesn’t?
Just some small questions I tackle in this week’s blog. Do read :)
https://lnkd.in/d95H3Wz2
PS: There is a 3rd kind too nowadays. Ones who are actually mercenary but pretend (to the world and themselves) to be missionary. Only kind of entrepreneur I don’t like.
PPS: this video is our first ‘ad’. continues to be the best representation of our purpose. that’s a good test of purpose btw - if you feel like changing it every two years, you don’t have one.
This post was originally shared by Shashank Mehta on Linkedin.