Diary of a Catalyst Grant Awardee Part Two: Selfishness

Alok Tayi is the CEO and co-founder of TetraScience (www.tetrascience.com).  Prior to TetraScience, he was a post-doctoral fellow in George Whitesides Lab at Harvard University.  Alok completed his B.S. and PhD in Materials Science at Cornell University and Nothwestern University, respectively.  He also co-founded the open innovation platform, PreScouter.  Alok has nearly 15 years of research experience and has published numerous high-impact papers in journals like Nature and Nature Chemistry.

The following is the second in a series of blog posts from Alok Tayi, CEO and co-founder of TetraScience. This series is inspired by a brief talk he gave at Digital Science’s Pitchfest, 2015.  Many thought leaders blog about the financial aspects of entrepreneurship: business models, pricing, value proposition, etc.  However, this series chronicles the deeply personal (e.g. moral, behavioral, etc.) questions that impact directly and indirectly the financial outcome of a business.

There is much to be celebrated about entrepreneurship – creating new jobs, solving an important problem, building economic value, to name just a few of the positives. However, I believe that early-stage entrepreneurship is also an inherently selfish endeavor, a view which I think is not discussed enough.

Think about it this way: starting a company often involves…

• Accepting time and money from early customers, in exchange for an imperfect product
• Receiving emotional and financial support from loved ones
• Expecting early employees to provide blood, sweat and tears, with the promise of financial rewards and professional development
• Taking advice from advisors and mentors.

Entrepreneurs willingly solicit help – financial, emotional, or otherwise – and hustle to build their businesses. Yet we rarely recognize the magnitude of our behavior and the toll it takes on those around us. As our startups grow, entrepreneurs ought to be aware of the “emotional debt” we accrue.

Though it may be difficult managing the multitude of demands on your time,  we still need to be vigilant of this debt. After all, whether failure or success awaits us, our family, friends and mentors will be the ones who stand by our side.

At TetraScience, we try to proactively express our gratitude to those who support us. To that end, here are some of the things we do:

• For our families, we routinely express our gratitude for their contribution by throwing a big dinner, especially when achieving a major milestone for the business
• For the team, upon closing a big customer, we celebrate with a champagne party
• For our advisors and mentors (as well as families and the team) we give them embroidered jackets. We want them to know that they are an important part of the TetraScience team

It is easy for entrepreneurs to take continuously from those around us. In the same way that we assume financial obligations to our investors, we assume emotional equivalents to everyone else.

However, unlike our financial obligations, the emotional debt we accumulate does not subside when our businesses exit or shut down. We would be well served to be mindful of the non-financial contributions made to support our entrepreneurial endeavors.