Starting a New Business is hard work. It’s tougher than anyone can imagine. But it’s also something I recommend everyone do at least once in their lives. Once a few years ago I set up my own company called E-Fusion Design. I incorporated as an LLC, designed a logo, had business cards printed up and even starting making money. And while part of me enjoyed it - part of me also hated all the day to day stuff that comes with running a business. Things like managing the books, marketing, and contracting out work. After about a year and a half - I turned in my key to the “Executive Bathroom” (i.e. the bathroom next to my home office in my apartment) - and went back to the safety of a Salary.

Today I find myself helping to start up a company once again. Only this time I’m lucky to have the support of a team of talented people - every step of the way. I know we’re going to hit a lot of stumbling blocks in the months to come - but I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on where we are today. Both our Triumphs and our Mistakes.

Let me start out by saying that I think you’d be hard pressed to find a team as talented as we THREE. We’re all amazing - experts in our respective fields (how’s that for modesty?). We have had amazing luck bringing clients and business into the company - and we’ve barely opened up shop. But - we’re also breaking the DRY rule over and over again. DRY is a programming term that means Don’t Repeat Yourself. There is a lot of repetition of efforts going on - and what’s more - people are stepping out of their roles to do things that would be better delegated to another team member.

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days - and I keep coming back to this little Parable about a Rabbit. It goes something like this:

Imagine there is a meadow. In that meadow there is a duck, a fish, an eagle, an owl, a squirrel, and a rabbit. They decide they want to have a school so they can be smart, just like people.

With the help of some grown-up animals, they come up with a curriculum they believe will make a well-rounded animal: running, swimming, tree climbing, jumping, and flying.

On the first day of school, little rabbit combed his ears, and he went hopping off to his running class.

There he was a star. He ran to the top of the hill and back as fast as he could go, and, oh, did it feel good. He said to himself, “I can’t believe it. At school, I get to do what I do best.”

The instructor said, “Rabbit, you really have talent for running. You have great muscles in your rear legs. With some training, you will get more out of every hop.”

The rabbit said, “I love school. I get to do what I like to do and get to learn to do it better.”

The next class was swimming. When the rabbit smelled the chlorine, he said, “Wait, wait! Rabbits don’t like to swim.”

The instructor said, “Well, you may not like it now, but five years from now you’ll know it was a good thing for you.”

In the tree-climbing class, a tree trunk was set at a 30-degree angle so all the animals had a chance to succeed. The little rabbit tried so hard he hurt his leg.

In jumping class, the rabbit got along just fine; in flying class, he had a problem. So the teacher gave him a test and discovered he belonged in remedial flying.

In remedial flying class, the rabbit had to practice jumping off a cliff. They told him if he’d just work hard enough, he could succeed.

The next morning, he went on to swimming class. The instructor said, “Today we jump in the water.”

“Wait, wait. I talked to my parents about swimming. They didn’t learn to swim. We don’t like to get wet. I’d like to drop this course.” The instructor said, “You can’t drop it. The drop-and-add period is over. At this point you have a choice: Either you jump in or you flunk.”

The rabbit jumped in. He panicked! He went down once. He went down twice. Bubbles came up. The instructor saw he was drowning and pulled him out. The other animals had never seen anything quite as funny as this wet rabbit who looked more like a rat without a tail, and so they chirped, and jumped, and barked, and laughed at the rabbit. The rabbit was more humiliated than he had ever been in his life. He wanted desperately to get out of class that day. He was glad when it was over.

He thought that he would head home, that his parents would understand and help him. When he arrived, he said to his parents, “I don’t like school. I just want to be free.”

If the rabbits are going to get ahead, you have to get a diploma, replied his parents.

The rabbit said, I don’t want a diploma.

The parents said, “You’re going to get a diploma whether you want one or not.”

They argued, and finally the parents made the rabbit go to bed. In the morning the rabbit headed off to school with a slow hop. Then he remembered that the principal had said that any time he had a
problem to remember that the counselor’s door is always open.

When he arrived at school, he hopped up in the chair by the counselor and said, “I don’t like school.”

And the counselor said, “Mmmm, tell me about it.”

And the rabbit did.

The counselor said, “Rabbit, I hear you. I hear you saying you don’t like school because you don’t like swimming. I think I have diagnosed that correctly.”

“Rabbit, I tell you what we’ll do. You’re doing just fine in running. I don’t know why you need to work on running. What you need to work on is swimming. I’ll arrange it so you don’t have to go to running anymore, and you can have two periods of swimming.”

When the rabbit heard that, he just threw up!

As the rabbit hopped out of the counselor’s office, he looked up and saw his old friend, the Wise Old Owl, who cocked his head and said, “Rabbit, life doesn’t have to be that way. We could have schools and businesses where people are allowed to concentrate on what they do well.”

Rabbit was inspired. He thought when he graduated, he would start a business where the rabbits would do nothing but run, the squirrels could just climb trees, and the fish could just swim. As he disappeared into the meadow, he sighed softly to himself and said…

“Oh, what a great place that would be.”

Are You Doing What You Do Best Today?

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