Dangerous People

There hasn’t been much posted on RookieOven over the past week or so. I’ve been in a bit of a trough. Over the past 18 months or so I’ve been working hard through various projects to do my bit in creating a ‘better’ startup community in Scotland. By this I mean one that is cohesive and well connected (both internally and externally) whilst also being open with a keen sense of collaboration. With that in place I firmly believe Scotland will be a world class place to found and grow a tech startup. I’ve invested a lot of my own time and effort through RookieOven, StartupDigest Scotland and the likes of Startup Weekend to attain this goal but recently I’ve been getting disheartened. Why? Well it’s all because of dangerous people.

It has been disheartening to see people engineer themselves into a position of authority over startups and yet provide advice that in my eyes can only be described as ill informed and dangerous. Now I’ve never claimed to be a startup expert, in fact I’m far from it. I have plenty to learn, but if someone asks me for advice or an opinion I always offer it at face value. The person can take it or leave it.

I know my limitations. Despite my comparative youth and inexperience I do feel I’m in a position to give quality advice to those developing products in areas I’ve worked before  however I know for a fact my opinions may be ill-suited. I’m also aware of the fact my skill set and knowledge is limited when it comes to businesses outwith my comfort zone. For example those selling physical products or an entirely service based business. Yeah I still have an opinion but there is really little to no value in it.

There are people in the community, I believe/suspect, are force feeding startups with advice that is entirely ill-suited to them. This is dangerous. A key aspect of assisting startups is knowing your limitations and then being able identify those who can effectively assist.

So for a case where someone is looking for help in area I have little to no knowledge about, whilst I might not be able to help there will almost certainly be someone in the community who can. If I know who ‘that’ is I will almost always introduce. Pointing in the right direction is more beneficial than grabbing the startup to bump up a ‘KPI’ followed by forcing an inappropriate opinion upon them.

The counter argument is that more resources being available to startups, regardless of quality, is beneficial. These people are putting the topic on the table,  raising awareness and being visible and this can only help stimulate the ecosystem and the community. To this end there’s a saying I’ve been seeing bandied about “a rising tide floats many boats”. It makes sense I guess but I’ve seen Jaws. It only takes one big dangerous shark to sink them all.

Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen here.