3 Types of Entrepreneurs

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Welcome to David Beats Goliath, weekly musings about overcoming the Goliaths of conventional thinking, reaching new heights, and leading a purpose-driven life.

Who Am I?

Hey — David here!

I recently retook the Myers-Briggs exam. I'm an ENFJ.

Here's a little blurb about what that means:

ENFJ is a personality type with the Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging traits. These warm, forthright types love helping others, and they tend to have strong ideas and values. They back their perspective with the creative energy to achieve their goals.

Sounds about right.

Whatever our identities, we want to learn and embrace them. There's immense power in self-understanding.

Who am I?

The ability to entertain the above question, reflect on it, and improve our thoughts and actions is what makes humans special. This process is called metacognition.

Let's do a little bit of that right now.

3 Ways of Work

I've been loving entrepreneurial principles and frameworks shared by Praxis Labs, a venture-building ecosystem with a redemptive imagination supporting founders, funders, and innovators motivated by their faith to address the major issues of our time.

Per their resesearch there are three ways to work with stakeholders:

1. The Exploitative way:

[I]s to take all you can get—to gain any advantage, to prevail, to possess. Exploitative actors most often approach the venture with a zero-sum, “I win, you lose” scarcity mentality. The motivating force behind the Exploitative way is fundamentally self- or tribe-centered—to win and control.

2. The Ethical way:

[I]s to do things right—to do no harm, keep the rules, play fair, solve problems, add value. Ethical actors pursue “win-win” whenever they can. The motivating force behind the Ethical way is to be good and do good — which can often also be self- or tribe-centered.

3. The Redemptive way:

[I]s creative restoration through sacrifice—to bless others, renew culture, and give of ourselves. Redemptive actors pursue an “I sacrifice, we win” approach with the agency and resources available to them. The motivating force behind the Redemptive way is fundamentally other-centered: to love and serve.

Which best describes your way of work?

Aiming for Higher Ground

My qualm with most VCs is that they practice the exploitative way of work.

Even the best of the best VCs are (at best) practicing the ethical way of work.

There's no denying that the startup ecosystem would be a better place if more VCs practiced the redemptive way of work.

You don't have to be a faith-driven person to agree with or learn from the Praxis Lab framework.

As an ENFJ, I'm motivated to not only be a redemptive investor, but also help my portfolio founders become redemptive entrepreneurs.

The redemptive way can be summarized as follows:

Creative restoration through sacrifice
I sacrifice, we win
Love and serve

It doesn't matter that you were an exploitative person.

What matters is who you decide to become tomorrow.

By us trying to become better investors and entrepreneurs in the way we work, the ecosystem has already improved.

Let's aim for higher ground folks!