

The Best Entrepreneur I Know - strukturedkaos
http://donpottinger.net/blog/2015/01/19/the-best-entrepreneur-i-know.html

======
beat
There's a lot more to entrepreneurship than the weird little bubble of
software startups. Entrepreneurs are just people who take a chance in order to
make a real difference.

I grew up poor, and one of the hardest things about being poor is that there
are so few role models for success. Except for teachers, I didn't know anyone
educated. Except for the people my father worked for (and mostly hated), I
didn't know anyone wealthy or successful. More of the grown men I knew were
failures, criminals, and addicts than successes.

As a smart child in this environment, teachers and other authority figures
expected intelligence to lead to obedience, and were frustrated that I didn't
care that much about their rules, that I wasn't interested in being especially
good at being mediocre. With a slightly different twist in the wind, I might
well have wound up a criminal myself, although I like to think I'd have been a
very good one.

Even when I left my hometown to go to college, it took me years to adjust to a
"normal" life. And it took me years more to realize again what I knew
instinctively as a child - that succeeding at mediocrity wasn't a worthwhile
life.

The men and women who have made a point of being social entrepreneurs, of
being role models in communities that desperately need them - they're better,
braver, and tougher than most of the founders we fawn over here. And they'll
make a more meaningful contribution to the world.

~~~
iolothebard
I wanted to be a cat burglar as a kid.

In all the studying, learning, planning and risk assessment I realized it's
easier and less risky to just go to college. That and stealing isn't really
something to aspire to in life.

Probably why I didn't stay in finance/accounting/banking. At least salesmen
have to convince you of their lies, the money wonks just take it out of your
account every month.

~~~
hueving
> the money wonks just take it out of your account every month.

With a statement like that it sounds like you lack some important critical
thinking skills. Try to provide concrete examples of things rather than
echoing standard claptrap.

~~~
visakanv
It's interesting to look at your comment, and look at the nasty comment that
it provoked. This is the starting point of a cycle of nastiness.

You could've asked the person to elaborate or be specific, or even
contradicted or questioned them- without saying "you lack <important skill>"
and "try to <be useful> rather than <being unimportant>".

Why so mean? Was the meanness intentional, or...? Genuinely curious.

~~~
deciplex
Honestly, if you can't withstand a little (in this case, very mild) invective
every once in a while, then you probably should avoid discussing politics on
the internet - if not in real life - altogether. While I obviously don't agree
with him at all, I don't think heuving's comment was inappropriate, even
within the context of trying to have a rational debate. And, I would say the
same of my own 'nasty' comment as well. You don't have to be courteous and
dispassionate to the point of servility to talk about politics or any other
topic - and in fact for many people that's quite boring anyway.

Really, grow a thicker skin.

~~~
visakanv
It seems to me that you think I'm offended, or upset, or concerned about
"appropriateness". I don't actually care for any of that!

Here were my thoughts:

1- We could have had an interesting discussion about finance

2- instead, it went "money wonks"-> "you lack critical skills" \+ "standard
claptrap" -> "you lack some important read-a-newspaper-in-the-last-seven-years
skills".

3- Back-and-forth snide, snarky attacks are far more boring (to me) than
actually discussing points of contention, different points of view, so on.

4- I definitely appreciate that you took the trouble to link to the Emergency
Economic Stablization Act, but it feels to me like the conversation had
already soured before that.

5- I'm writing what I'm writing not so much because of this particular
instance, but because mean comments in general tend to derail otherwise
interesting or could've-been-interesting threads. Which feels wasteful to me.
A mean comment has a souring effect that's IMHO not worth the short-term
entertainment value.

------
SwellJoe
I'm happy to see there's been a lot more discussion lately in Silicon Valley
and entrepreneurial communities, in general, about the importance of role
models who are people of color and women. This article only covers one side of
that (not that it is less interesting or touching for not covering the other
side)...the other side is that until white folks in our industry, or in other
industries, are regularly seeing and interacting with people of color and
women in leadership roles, we will likely continue to allow unintentional
biases to affect our decisions and our workplaces, probably to the detriment
of all (but mostly to the detriment of people of color and women).

There have been a number of studies showing the unintentional white
supremacist thinking that even folks who think of themselves as progressive
and anti-racist exhibit (and even people of color and women can fall prey to
these same biases against their own race or gender). That perpetuates a cycle
that can only be broken by visible disruption of the cycle. i.e. people who
aren't historically in leadership roles, who aren't historically in tech
roles, being empowered and successful in those roles.

Note that I'm not making governmental policy suggestions here. I'm making
cultural and systemic observations. I don't know the solutions, really, but
awareness and acknowledgment of the problem is certainly one of the early
steps.

Anyway, I loved having a good barber shop. I haven't found a good one since
moving back to Texas, but it really is a nice thing to have a regular barber
who does a nice job, and knows and cares about his community. It's unfortunate
that there are so few barbers left...they've been replaced by the chain
haircutter places that hire people straight out of beauty school; those
businesses are rarely worker-owned (they rent the chairs, or are part-time
employees), and rarely have any significant ties to the community (though they
are often franchises, possibly owned by someone in the same city or, at least,
the same state).

~~~
yummyfajitas
There is a very straightforward way to mitigate the effect of biases. Make
everything as algorithmic as possible and don't use biasing factors as inputs
to the algorithms. This also fixes more biases than just the the ones with
sympathetic victims - you'll hire both the woman and the ugly socially awkward
guy with kickass github profiles.

Unintentional bias lives in the subjective and human parts of our procedures.
The fewer decisions humans make, the less bias you see.

See also this blog post I wrote recently. Drivers I flag on the street
explicitly and intentionally discriminate against me about 80% of the time.
With Uber/Ola/Taxi4sure it's 0%.
[https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2015/why_i_like_uber.html](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2015/why_i_like_uber.html)

~~~
mseebach
Nobody disagrees with that. But 100 years of management research, and we're
nowhere near an objective measure for what makes a good hire.

The objective measure for an Uber ride is orders of magnitude simpler: "is
reasonably civilised, unlikely to soil the car or abuse the driver" and even
then, their approach to deciding who fits, is to just try, then kick you off
the system if you don't live up to the criteria.

~~~
yummyfajitas
We've got lots of great techniques that apply in specific cases. Work sample
tests and intelligence tests (admittedly illegal in the US), for example -
tokenadult has a long linkdump that backs this up. If I recall right, tptacek
has also done this in practice and had it work excellently.

Further, even if you can only systematize part of the process, that still
helps you debug. If women all get rejected on the (blind) coding test then you
don't need to waste time looking for bias. If women get rejected at the
culture fit interview then you might want to look for bias at that stage.

------
abalone
Fantastic man, and barbershops have long played an important role in African-
American communities.

But as to the comment about MLK, it would be a mistake to comprehend the civil
rights movement as being embodied in entrepreneurialism.

This being a startup community of entrepreneurs, it is tempting for us to
celebrate the power of individual free enterprise paired with social cause.
And that is noble. But the civil rights movement stands for _organized_ action
to fight racism at a _systemic_ level. It is the more conservative, privileged
sector that focuses on "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" individual
entrepreneurialism as the pathway to racial equality.

The civil rights movement is about organized mass action to address the racism
and disadvantages inherent in white-dominated institutions and social
relations. That is what MLK stood for: fixing white racism and structural
inequality, not merely black role models and self-esteem.

~~~
qznc
Martin Luther King also demanded his followers to become better people to
disprove the stupid-savage-criminal image they had. The Black Panthers also
stood for fixing white racism and structural inequality.

It is this "become a better person" aspect of MLK, which Dennis embodies,
imho.

------
aceperry
Great article. Also brings up an aspect of the tech startup mentality that
bothers me from time to time. From my reading of pg and ycombinator's focus on
fast hockey stick like growth curves, it seems that you can easily
dismiss/overlook small and steady businesses like Klippers which can perform
very important roles in our lives.

I'm not criticizing pg and the ycombinator crowd, in fact I have much respect
and admiration for what they're trying to achieve. But I think small
businesses don't get the respect that they deserve.

~~~
NhanH
It's actually pretty interesting that small/lifestyle businesses get a lot of
respect on Hacker News (pinboard, improvely, Appointment reminder and their
creators are all very well revered here). In fact, a lot more than the general
population (from my point of view) have for those businesses.

~~~
aceperry
It seems to me that the focus at HN is on startups that aim for huge growth,
and not really small businesses; especially not small, stable businesses that
don't have much potential to grow very large. The subject of the article is a
small business that won't really scale well. One of the biggest topics of
discussion at HN is around the topic of scaling a business.

I'm glad to see an article like this which reminds us that small businesses
can be an important part of our society. I also see some efforts by some
people in the ycombinator network to expand beyond the mechanics of doing
startups. I attended last year's startup school and was blown away and
inspired by one of the speakers, Danae Ringelmann:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPbHf4i6CrQ&list=PLQ-
uHSnFig...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPbHf4i6CrQ&list=PLQ-
uHSnFig5OyY5JWSQrl_gESiEUJxe1m&index=3)

------
DigitalSea
This is a really heart-warming and great read.

I think a lot of businesses tech and non-tech alike can take a page out of
Dennis' book. You're not just running a business, for some, it can be a much
more personal experience if you are willing to make the effort. As the author
Don points out, he is willing to drive 30 minutes to not only see his mother,
but also to get his haircut. You can't buy that kind of customer loyalty.

As with most things in life, sometimes just listening is all you need to do.
Listen to your customers, make them feel important and valued. Surprisingly
simple, but something most businesses fail to do.

------
bstahlhood
Great article. Thank you for sharing your experience. I had to do the "I got
something in my eye" move so those around me would not think I was crying :)

~~~
strukturedkaos
Thanks! This past weekend, I was able to tell Dennis how much he means to me,
and I had to catch myself because I was beginning to choke up. It ended up
being the inspiration behind this post.

------
levlandau
there's an awesome lady at Stanford Hair
([http://www.stanfordhair.com/](http://www.stanfordhair.com/)) that simply
blew my mind with her kindness. She took customer service to a whole new
level. I've since moved from Palo Alto to SF and I've tried really hard to
make my schedule work just so I can get a hair cut from her. I think I'm going
to make that happen this weekend. I was a fresh PhD dropout living on $600/mo
~ 2 yrs ago, not quite where I want to be but things are much better now, I
owe her a download of how things have gone :) OP thanks for the nudge.

------
thetruthseeker1
I read the Article. Dennis seems like a nice guy- rather a great guy! But I do
think that this article does not particularly embody a spirit of
entrepreneurship. Dont get me wrong, Dennis does not embody any negaative
spirit, everything positive. It is fitting for MLK day. However, just because
it makes us feel warm and fuzzy, it shouldn't be characterized to embody any
particular quality that we choose to say it does. It embodies great human
spirit, but, rationally thinking, is not fitting example of entrepreneur.

~~~
skrebbel
How very Silicon Valley of you. If he had a "book a haircut" app, would you
consider him an enterpreneur then?

~~~
thetruthseeker1
No, I wouldn't consider that alone a great enterprise. It should be determined
based on some objective and measurable criteria. Everybody who develops an app
is not a great entrepreneur, and everybody who is nice alone is not a great
entrepreneur

------
slimetree
This made me smile, but it would've been nice to read more about what he and
Dennis actually talked about.

~~~
strukturedkaos
Thanks for reading! I would love to go into more detail about what we talked
about, but it varies so much from session to session. I could write an entire
book on our conversations.

~~~
cshenoy
A book on your conversations with him could be a fascinating read. Just
sayin...

~~~
Jacky800
This is really nice idea.

------
D-Train
Dennis sounds like good guy. If I didn't quit buzzing my head, I'd be
interested in going to him.

But to a greater point: entrepreneurship isn't just about the millions or
billions we more often hear in the news. Instead, it's also about the small
biz owners like Dennis who aspire for great things for their communities,
their family and friends, and yes, themselves.

We should shoot for the stars, but not get disappointed because we only
reached the moon. Or heck, if we were able to "fly" at all... that's awesome.

Great write-up! Now, can Dennis also have an app? I'd like to help with that.

------
enigami
It's 8.30 am here and the first thing I read today is this inspirational
article. People like Mr. Dennis lead by example and that inspires others.

Next time when you visit him, just pass on my Hug!!

------
freshfey
Beautifully written, thanks for sharing.

This reminds me of this movie:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108560/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108560/)
(Who's the Man?)

A 1993 classic with a lot of known Hip Hop artists, the main characters
basically help a well-known and very helpful barber in the community by
joining the police and taking care of the community. Quite funny and
entertaining.

------
jacquesm
Beats a new way to share cats online for me. If you want to see what 'change
the world' means look no further than this.

------
roycehaynes
Love the article. It was not the typical post I read on HN, but fitting on
several levels. Thanks for sharing!

------
known
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man.

