What Type Of Person Thrives In Startups According To A Cofounder At Pencil Energy
Kyle, Cofounder at Pencil Energy, highlights the contrasting traits needed for success in different roles: auditors need "unlimited patience for technicalities and detail," while founders must "love the journey," embracing the "grind" of constant iteration and relentless sales efforts, accepting that "what matters are not your ideas, they're the good ideas."
Detail-oriented, Patient, Resilient, Self-motivated, Persistent
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Kyle Brauer
Cofounder
Pencil Energy
UCLA - 2017
UCLA Anderson FEMBA, 2023 - MBA Degree
Political Science, American Studies
Climate, Environment, Sustainability & Waste Management, Energy & Utilities
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans, Worked 20+ Hours in School, LGBTQ, Transfer Student
Video Highlights
1. Thriving as an auditor requires extreme attention to detail and patience for technicalities. While this focus can lead to thorough work, it also risks getting bogged down in minutiae.
2. To thrive as a founder, one must love the journey and be comfortable with constant change and a significant time commitment. It's a numbers game with many rejections and requires resilience.
3. Founders must accept trade-offs in lifestyle and finances, embracing the grind and prioritizing the process over individual ideas. Passion for the work is crucial for navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship.
Transcript
How would you describe people who typically thrive in your industry?
I love this question. I have to think very carefully about how I answer this for auditors. It's a small world.
People who thrive as auditors love going into the weeds. They love reading everything and have seemingly unlimited patience for technicalities and detail. I actually don't have that.
It made it a struggle for me sometimes. When you don't have that, it helps you avoid going down rabbit holes, but it also creates a slightly higher risk of missing things or making incomplete conclusions. So just be aware of the downsides and upsides.
If you love the detail, you may waste a lot of your time as an auditor looking at things that don't go anywhere. You need people who are extremely detail-oriented. Auditors can't have anything less than that.
The degree to which you have that changes the way the team will work. The more detail-oriented you are, the more you thrive simply because the work really rewards people for doing that. Both in time and budget, it's just well set up for that.
As a founder, to thrive, in my opinion, you need to love the journey. Every week looks different. In the early stages, you are throwing out ideas constantly, including things you've been working on for months. You accept that what matters are not your ideas; they're the good ideas.
It sounds trite, but I'm saying it because a lot of people love the idea of being a founder. It's glamorous in today's world, but the day-to-day is such a grind. You have to be a grinder at heart to thrive.
If you don't like the process, this is why I say journey, process, journey, same thing. This can mean tons of cold calls when you have a product you're ready to sell, and you just get told "no" all the time. There's no way around it.
It could mean going to a million events and pitching over and over again. I do a lot of that. Sometimes you only get two or three follow-ups, and maybe from that, you get one that actually moves somewhere. That's the life, and it's a numbers game, like dating or job applications. It's a huge grind.
So you need to be okay with that. You also need to be okay with restructuring expectations about lifestyle. If you're a founder, you will have the luxury of working your own hours, but you'll work more hours. You will have much less money to use on anything, so you will say "no" to a lot of things.
Hence, you have to love the journey because there are a lot of trade-offs. It's not free to be a founder.