In the book “The Intelligent Investor” Benjamin Graham creates one of the most brilliant metaphors for explaining how stocks can be mispriced through the manic-depressive Mr. Market.

This got me thinking, what is the emotional disposition of Mr. Startup?

These are the thoughts that followed:

• He is overly optimistic, one might say delirious so.
• He’s solution focused.
• He never leaves his bubble of a vision for what “could be” to hear the voice of the market and make necessary pivots.
• He surrounds himself with those who praise his product but do not make purchases.

When I think of Mr. Startup I’m reminded oof the fantastic quote below: “[young founders] go through the motions of starting a startup. They come up with some plausible sounding idea, they raise funding to get a nice valuation, then the next step is they rent a nice office in SoMa and hire a bunch of their friends, until they gradually realize how completely fucked they are because while imitating all the outward forms of starting a startup, they have neglected the one thing that is actually essential, which is to make something people want.” – Paul Graham, How To Start A Startup, Lecture 3.

This was a fun thought exercise that I’m going to see progress. Until next time, Mr. Startup.