Monk and the Riddle Paper

Alexis Kane

In high school I accidently started a business and at that point probably could not have spelled entrepreneurship, let alone define it. After a year at Babson, being a part of a student run company, and memorizing different definitions of the word entrepreneurship, the most important thing I have learned is that entrepreneurship is so much more than just a simple definition and I am constantly surprised by the different ways it is utilized. One of the more interesting concepts I thought was different in The Monk and the Riddle, was the advice Randy had for the majority of startups to stay small, “Stay small and remain flexible for the time being, so we can keep close to the market, learn from prospective customers, and afford to take some missteps” (page 52). This may seem rather obvious in some situations and after reading further into it, I realized that I had experience where this model could have been applied and possibly have saved a company. A startup that I had the privilege of observing from the beginning in my home town, made some huge mistakes early on that were detrimental to the business. The startup was in the food industry. The founders choose this path because of their family history within the food industry. Very soon after they opened their first shop, they decided to open their second one in another location. As a customer of this restaurant, I had my own experiences at the first location and observed many problems within the business. The owners never asked for my feedback, or when a problem did arise they would solve it in the quickest way possible. They proceeded with this strategy as more and more problems arose. It is one thing when you have a startup, to make mistakes and experiment with solutions, but with this particular start up, they didn’t take the time to create a sustainable success in their first location, before jumping into the next one in search of creating more revenue. I think this relates to another surprising topic covered in the book regarding the difference between passion and drive. “Passion pulls you toward something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do” (page 83). Drive and passion, before reading this book were two words that I usually grouped together. I believed that as an individual I had the drive to do something and that made me passionate about it. Obviously I thought my reasoning to be logical but after reflecting on Randy’s words and relating it back to this startup, I realized passion and drive are very different things. The founders of this restaurant had the drive pushing them to do this, and go in this direction because of their family background, and that is where the focus on making money and expanding right away came from. If they had been truly passionate about this startup, they would have taken the time to perfect their first location, implement all the necessary changes and listen to their customers before expanding. Much like Larry, when he first comes to Randy with funerals.com, the founders had results, and money on their mind, not the bigger picture, there was no vision.