Expert serial entrepreneurs believe that the growth of a venture is limited only by the number of collaborators they could attract, not by the amount of money they could raise. This is what Saras Sarasvathy, Darden School of Business researcher, learned when interviewing expert serial entrepreneurs.
In fact, attracting people to your new business or new corporate initiative is paramount to successful growth. It is essentially enrolling self-selected people to the venture not to do something you want them to do, but offering them the opportunity to do something they want to do and feel that they can do it if they join your venture.
Attracting people to a cause has several advantages:
- Confirmation of value – it is an inexpensive way to confirm that your business venture or corporate initiative is on the right track
- More resources to tap – with limited funds for start-ups and limited budgets for new corporate ventures, enrollment of people brings resources that you could not “buy”
- Spread the risk – the addition of resources reduces the resources one person or one department must contribute
- More creativity – more participation provides new ideas
The last listed advantage actually provides a quantum leap in that stakeholders can actually change the design and direction during dynamic contribution.
As one of Sarasvathy’s elements for her “effectual logic”, a design approach to new ventures, she calls the enrollment of partners “quilting” and she contrasts it with building a puzzle.
With a puzzle, you have a clear picture of the objective and it is a question of finding the right pieces. In a new venture with a known market, it is a question of putting the right resources and positioning together quicker than your competitor.
However, when it is an unknown market with a new untested venture, the process is closer to quilting. As you enroll each new stakeholder, new resources and ideas are brought to bear on the venture such that it will most likely change, just as a quilt changes its pattern as more fabric is added by more quilters.
Enrollment is accomplished by inspiring people to be a part of something. While it has always been a key of leadership in galvanizing an organization, it is also becoming known as a key element in starting a new business or launching a new corporate initiative.
