Love and Entrepreneurship
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
I recently finished reading How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's a classic book not just about business but about life. Carnegie uses a conversational style and a hefty dose of anecdotes to teach the reader the most valuable skill a business person can ever learn - how to handle relationships. From Carnegie's intro:
...investigations revealed that even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering - to personality and the ability to lead people.
Carnegie's book reads more like a book on etiquette than a book on achieving business success. Some of the chapter names include A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression, How to Interest People, A Drop of Honey, and What Everybody Wants. If those chapters sound like they might lead to overly simple answers, then you're thinking right. The book preaches the importance of smiling, listening closely to people, asking questions, leading the conversation towards the interests of others, and attempting to learn different points of view.
The answers are so simple, that its almost hard to believe them. As a software developer, I love unraveling complexity. The code that I dive into on daily basis satiates my desire to create elegant and automated solutions to complex tasks. To think that my ability to write a database query that joins 40 tables, returns 10,000 records, and executes in less than 100ms is less valuable than my ability to make eye contact during a conversation is completely counter intuitive.
It's also completely true.
As I dove into Carnegie's book and found insights amazing both for their value and their simplicity, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had encountered the same gravity and simplicity elsewhere. Of course, whenever I get an unshakable rumination, I know the source. So I went to my bible and opened to the verse that clearly inspired Carnegie's laws on winning friends:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” - Matthew 22:34-40
All of the laws of Christendom and all of the laws of winning friends and influencing people can be distilled down into a one-word, imperative sentence: Love.
What is it you are trying to accomplish? Are you writing software that you want millions of people to pay few bucks to use? Or maybe you're building something you want a few people to pay millions of bucks to use. Are you convincing a manager or recruiter to get you a job at Apple, Google, or Facebook? Or are you trying to build a startup that will disrupt an industry and free customers from the oppression of the incumbents?
Every single goal you have, whether you realize it or not, involves people. It doesn't matter what you're doing - if you're writing a new compiler or tweaking an SEO tactic or writing an iPhone app that sells condoms to the Amish - you're trying to inspire some action in people that will positively affect your goals.
There's a piece of advice that the apostle Paul gives in the bible that is sure to give you an edge in accomplishing these goals: Love never fails - 1 Corinthians 13:8.
And it shouldn't be hard to see why loving people is the best way to inspire them to act.
The love gap is the competitive advantage that every entrepreneur can most easily exploit. No matter what industry or market you're trying to enter, there is a massive love deficit. Customers are unloved. Employees are unloved. Co-founders are unloved. Love is probably the most under-served demand in industry today, and yet every single person on the planet instinctively yearns for it.
Google's mantra is "Don't be evil". Facebook's maxim is "Don't be lame". Presumably, both of these statements are about people - Don't be evil to the user, Don't be lame to employees, Don't be evil to our customers, Don't be lame with our partners. These are all negative calls to action for these companies - things not to do. When I read positive calls to action from companies, they're all selfish, vanilla, morale killing slogans like "Is this right for the company?".
The only message I've heard from a company that struck a cord with my love sensibilities came from Apple:
[Mike] Markkula wrote his principles in a one-page paper titled "The Apple Marketing Philosophy" that stressed three points. The first was empathy, an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer: "We will truly understand their needs better than any other company - pg. 78, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Empathy is definitely a means of showing love, and being that Apple is the most successful business in the world right now, I'd say it's working for them. Still, there are many other aspects to love that Apple does not employ, and few companies do. What are some other ways that love can be used? Well, my home dog Paul has some more insights on that:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
So from now on, my business philosophy is a one-word, imperative sentence: Love.
I will love my clients. I will love my partners. I will love my recruiters. I will love my readers. I will love my co-founders. I will love my users.
This idea is simple, but it's not easy. Smiling and making eye contact, presenting a warm demeanor, using soft, inviting language is just the beginning - whether its an investor meeting or a landing page. Once you've inspired someone to open up to you, you need to carefully listen and ask the questions that will lead you to their pain points - and then you have to doggedly and unselfishly identify how to solve those pain points while sacrificing whatever you logically believe to be the most advantageous path for you. That's how you love.
Because of the difficulty, building a product or a business around this is terribly unpopular. This is why it's the most unexploited strategy in business. It's why all of the legacy code you pour over doesn't have any comments in it. It's why Facebook won't give you the data they collect on you. It's why Apple uses the patent system to kill innovation. It's why Google cozies up to copyright trolls rather than fight oppressive laws. It's why you can't get any of your pull requests on GitHub accepted.
It's a difficult strategy, but it is completely unexploited. So I'm moving into the love marketplace. I want to meet the demand for love that is not being met. It's great business - and it can't fail.















