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This article highlights the distinctive characteristics of startups, such as their ability to innovate, strategic agility, and speed of execution. Successful entrepreneurs emphasize the significant personal workload required to launch a startup and the need for them not to become a bottleneck in decision-making. This raises questions about the long-term viability of the overwork advocated by Elon Musk and underscores the necessity of gradually delegating managerial activities to find a balance between professional and personal life.
E. Krieger
Startups distinguish themselves from traditional companies by their ability to innovate radically, strategic agility, and speed of execution. This significant acceleration from the company’s inception requires abundant capital that self-financing typically cannot provide.
Among the emblematic startups that rapidly evolved into industrial groups are:
- SpaceX: Founded by Elon Musk, this company revolutionized the space industry by developing the first reusable launchers.
- Airbnb: This housing rental platform experienced rapid growth, becoming a global company within a decade.
- Zoom Video Communications: This video conferencing software company gained a massive audience during the Covid-19 pandemic due to its ease of use and deployment.
However, money and the quality of the value proposition are not the only ingredients for success.
Working More to Reduce Bottlenecks
The amount of work required to launch an innovative, hyper-growth startup is often underestimated. I have been in contact with dozens of iconic entrepreneurs, and beyond their high-quality value propositions and business models, their testimonies emphasize an enormous workload for founders. This extraordinary effort is indeed necessary to lift off a startup, considering that 90% of these companies fail within five years.
Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, co-founder of PriceMinister, surrounded himself with brilliant associates to develop a startup that was sold for €200 million ten years after its creation to the Rakuten Group. However, he emphasized the need to quickly respond to numerous requests that require the CEO’s decision-making, as failing to do so may cause many strategic projects to fall behind. The managerial challenge is not to become a bottleneck that slows down the company’s development.
Innovation, Persistence, and the 100-Hour Workweek: Elon Musk’s Formula
Elon Musk embodies the imperative of overwork more than most entrepreneurs. In a famous interview where a journalist asked him for three pieces of advice to start, he essentially recommends:
- Develop an offer that presents considerable value to customers and users.
- Be extremely tenacious.
- Work like Hell.
Elon Musk concluded: « If other people work 40 hours a week, and you work 100 hours a week, even if you do the same thing, you will achieve in 4 months what they will take a year to achieve. »
Is Entrepreneurial Stakhanovism Sustainable?
This is undeniable, but is it sustainable in the long run? Assuming you manage to preserve one day a week, that would make for 17-hour workdays, leaving little time for a social life outside of work, which would then absorb most of your life.
These extreme hours are likely explained by Elon Musk’s involvement in simultaneously developing several global-scale startups. However, many entrepreneurs claim they work « until one in the morning » or even later. When you feel like you have long working days yourself, it becomes humbling…
The founder and CEO of a very prosperous and publicly traded startup confided in us, saying he was « embroiled » in his company, with its development absorbing him even on weekends.
Working More… or Delegating More
However, many successful entrepreneurs gradually manage to organize themselves to not sacrifice their family and social life or even their health in this advanced form of entrepreneurial Stakhanovism.
Such an evolution is possible through the delegation of responsibilities as the company develops. This led Antoine Riboud, the founder of Danone, to say that it is easier to lead a company of 500 people than an SME of 50 people.
However, reaching that size is a real challenge, which only concerns a few tens of thousands of companies out of the more than 30 million European companies, among which startups and other growth companies represent only a fraction.
We have observed this evolution with iconic entrepreneurs such as the founders of Point Vision Group or Big Mamma Group, reaching 1300 and 2500 employees, respectively, within ten years before a sale for several hundred million Euros.
Entrepreneurship Without Burning Out
Elon Musk is not wrong in recommending working like a Hell to develop an exceptional company, but one must keep in mind the balance between one’s professional life, no matter how exciting, and one’s private life, or the cost may be high for you or your surroundings, even if you have made a fortune.
Changing the world without prematurely burning out in this Promethean task is the challenge.
