The Vibrancy of Open
Life advice coming - no harm has ever come from being open and willing to listen. Better everything comes of it, actually. Better art. Better hearts. Better science. Better business. Better parenting. Being willing to stay open, especially when you’re sure you know the answer, is a master’s skill. I’m not a master at it, but I hope to be, and I practice every day, twice a day, when I sit with my mantra.
Imagine if our startup world took this to the farthest degree they could. What if instead of doors and ceilings, walls and secret handshakes, we let every entrepreneur with an idea have a shot at talking about it? Imagine all the iterating that would organically happen? Imagine all the implicit bias we could shed just by the very one act of being open? Imagine all the opportunity that would come for all involved? As I continue to do work on my bias blindspots and advocate for equity where and when I can, I wonder how these things would shift our startup world? How much more colorful could we make it?
The other day, somehow in a pandemic with my kids in Zoom school and not a playdate in sight because, well, it’s 2020, I found myself in the car alone, driving to Costco. Far enough from my home that I could actually listen to and get lost in something of substance; no kid to complain about how boring it all was. Flipping through my podcasts, I landed on Guy Raz’s “How I Built This”. Scrolling through, I landed on one called: How I Built Resilience: Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures. A 24-minute listen. Perfect timing for the ride to pick up back-to-school goodies for our elementary school teachers.
Listening to Jennifer, I thought, “Yes! This is what I’m talking about.” She talked about transparency and giving every single one who knocked on her door a shot at talking more. She also talked about the ability to pivot, hard in a global health crisis that her diverse class of founders had. By the time I got back home with crates of organic apples and Kind bars, I was, in the now famous words, Fired Up! Ready to Go!
The January Ventures website headlines, in part, “We believe venture should be transparent, open and accessible. The chance to build the future should be equal opportunity.” Of course it should. And I’m so glad to have found the two women who co-founded January Ventures and their cadre of equity-in-venture warriors.
I’m putting out a call to all of you, as members of a tribe of progressive, forward-thinking entrepreneurs, to be willing to listen more. If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that we have more time than we think when we stop letting minutes and hours seep out of our days on things that don’t really matter. Find the things that move you, get quiet, open doors and listen. Everything you create will be better, filled with a vibrancy of equity and diversity. I promise.