If you are not at least a little obsessed; you’re not in a startup

There is a fine line between being passionate and pathological but founders have to walk it.

Serge van Dam is an early stage startup investor, focused on going-global productivity software (SaaS) companies. He spends much of his time with a bayonet in hand yelling “now” in the startup trenches.

TLDR: If you are not at least a little obsessed; you’re not in a startup. You are merely in a business.

With the support of our friends at Caffeine Daily, Troy Hammond and I host a podcast / show; Startup Theatre (often referred to as “The World’s Biggest Podcast”). We recently interviewed the co-founder of Xero, Hamish Edwards. What came through loud and clear in our conversation with him (which you can watch / listen to here) is the role of obsessive behaviour when it comes to starting, building and scaling a company.

The first startup to properly suck me in was a mobile banking company called M-Com I was involved in. I really would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about how to win a deal (or panicking that I had lost one). I really did have product-related eureka moments in the bathroom, even though I was neither a founder nor responsible for the product. And I certainly missed more than a handful of conversations I was having with friends or family because I was obsessing about our company and its ambitions. I am not saying it was honourable conduct, but I think it was necessary. And bizarrely, I miss the feeling!