On The Intelligence Requirements Of Entrepreneurs (ENTINT)

(Note to readers:  This is the continuation of an occasional series of posts about providing intelligence support to entrepreneurs   This issue interests me for both academic and personal reasons.  Academically, I can think of no one who has touched it and, personally, I have recently started a games company and am about to launch my first game, Widget.)

To understand the intelligence requirements of entrepreneurs, it helps, I think, to have an understanding of what makes a "good' entrepreneur.   When you consider that both the guy with 10 million dollars in venture capital and the guy with 50 bucks of used CDs are both technically entrepreneurs, such a task might seem difficult, if not impossible. 

Recently, though, some very good research has come out of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Saras Sarasvathy, (who, it should be noted, got her start at Carnegie Mellon working with Nobel Laureate, Herbert Simon), has done extensive research on how great entrepreneurs think.

Great entrepreneurs, it seems, are "effectual reasoners".  They start with broad goals, assess their means - the birds in their hands - and then move as far as their resources will allow.  This is in contrast to more typical "causal reasoning" which starts with a specific goal and a clear plan for achieving it.  The image below, from the Society for Effectual Action, visualizes the difference: 

http://www.effectuation.org/learn/effectuation-101

Entrepreneurs, according to Sarasvathy's research, operate on five principles.  These principles, in turn, give an insight into the intelligence needs of entrepreneurs:

• Bird in the Hand.  Entrepreneurs start by imagining what they can do with what they have rather than setting a goal and then abandoning it if they do not have the means to achieve it.  Helping the entrepreneur identify what they "have" in this global economy would seem to be at least one intelligence requirement. 
• Affordable Loss.   Instead of large all or nothing plans, entrepreneurs seek, like Napoleon, to conduct "a well reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by a rapid and audacious attack."  In other words, they seek to determine what they can afford to lose at each step rather than hyper-focus on expected return.  Intelligence should, then, focus on the near-term, external, potential causes of loss.
• Lemonade.  Entrepreneurs tend to see surprises as opportunities.  Intelligence would be useful in helping the entrepreneur explore, understand and exploit those opportunities.  
• Patchwork Quilt.  Entrepreneurs worry less about competition and more about building partnerships with people who want to work with them.  Intelligence could play a significant role in helping the entrepreneur identify potential partners.
• Pilot in the plane.  Entrepreneurs believe that the future is "neither found nor predicted, but rather made."  Sarasvathy contrasts this to managerial thinking which accepts that trends will hold and the future is predictable.  

This last principle would seem to fly in the face of most intelligence analysis activities but I don't think so.  What it highlights for me is a trend I see throughout the five principles - a focus on the immediate (or, at best, the near term) when it comes to intelligence support to entrepreneurs.  

This certainly tracks with my own experience to date.  I don't need perfect answers.  I certainly don't need long-term predictions about the health of the tabletop gaming industry.  I need good-enough answers about things I am working on right now.  

This, in turn, suggests the form of an intelligence activity designed to support entrepreneurs.   It would have to be staffed by a variety of high-quality generalists, able to provide answers on a wide range of topics quickly.  Since almost no entrepreneurs have money to burn, it would likely have to provide support to a number of entrepreneurs at a number of different low-cost support levels (perhaps by subscription or even by the question).  It would have to be available 24/7 and, it almost goes without saying, it would have to be available online and possibly through phone or text message.

Such a service already exists.  Called Fancy Hands, this online site bills itself as a virtual assistant service.  While it provides a wide variety of services, all at a reasonable flat fee per month for a pre-defined number of requests, I have used Fancy Hands almost exclusively as a research service - a proto-intelligence service for entrepreneurs, if you will.  

Fancy Hands, of course, does much more than research for their clients and, I am sure, would dispute any claim that they are an intelligence service of any kind (proto or not).  My point is not to disagree with them (I like their service too much to gratuitously seek to irritate them...).  My point is that any organization seeking to provide intelligence services to entrepreneurs could learn from them.  Much of what they do and, more importantly, the way they do it, is exactly what entrepreneurs require.

Entrepreneurial Intelligence (ENTINT?)

All entrepreneurs are crazy. 

Nuts.  Cuckoo.  Certifiable dingbats.  Need evidence?  How about this:  According to a study published last year, only about 25% of companies that take venture capital are able to make any money off it -- the other 75% lose at least some and perhaps all of the money.  

Need more?  According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about a third of all small businesses make it for longer than 10 years and 30% fold within the first two years!  You have to be crazy to go up against those odds...

Intelligence analysts live to forecast and one of the easiest forecasts you can make, or so it seems, is the sooner-rather-than-later demise of a new business. 

Easy but worthless.

It is a situation that is sort of like the 1990 National Intelligence Estimate on what is now the former Yugoslavia.  It was completed just before the war broke out in full force.  It turned out to be extremely accurate but was virtually useless to the policymakers of the day.  In fact, it was probably counterproductive as it validated the inertia that was prevalent in Washington regarding the issue at the time.

You see, it was in the US's interests -- heck, it was in everyone's interests -- to keep Yugoslavia from breaking up or, if it had to break up, to do it in a way that was neither bloody nor lengthy.  Saying, as the NIE did, that the breakup was inevitable and that there was nothing policymakers could do about it was singularly unhelpful.  The policymakers needed to try and they could have used some intelligence insights to help them.

So it is with entrepreneurs.  Telling them that they are likely to fail probably isn't going to dissuade them from trying; its just going to make them think that intelligence isn't going to be very valuable.  This is a shame, since entrepreneurs probably have more questions about things that are critical to their success or failure but are outside their control (the essence of an intelligence question) than most businesses.

For the last several months I have been busy starting my own company and working on a number of games (one of them - Widget - is about ready to launch.  You can find out more about it here if you are interested).  I know intelligence has a role to play in entrepreneurship but am just beginning to understand what that role is and how it is both different and the same as more traditional notions of intelligence in business.  As I learn new things and gain understanding, I intend to explore these ideas in an occasional series of posts on the topic.

Sources And Methods Games? Yes!

Well, I went and did it!  Started my own company - Sources And Methods Games!

No, I am not quitting my day job.

But ... I do want to explore the intersection between games, intelligence, learning and entrepreneurship (4 big passions of mine).  Doing so from the safety of the University and with someone else's money, however, just didn't seem right somehow.  I suppose I just like testing theories more than talking about them.

What specifically, do I hope to learn?

• What makes a game good?  
• How do games teach?  
• Is it possible to make good games that teach intelligence concepts or methods?  
• Does it make more sense, from the standpoint of teaching intelligence, to focus on tabletop or video games?  
• How is crowdfunding (KickStarter, IndieGoGo, etc.) changing the gaming industry (particularly the tabletop games industry)?  
• What are the intelligence requirements of a globalized, crowdfunded, social media driven business environment?
• Given the research into effectual reasoning and entrepreneurship, what is intelligence's role in a start-up? 
• What are an entrepreneur's Essential Elements of Information (EEIs)?  
• How can they best be met?  

There's more, but this list is a good start.  The bottomline is that this effort -- which is as much a research project as a company -- gives me a chance to explore these questions in a more realistic way.  I recognize that much of the evidence I gather will be anecdotal but I think I will be better able to orient myself on important issues as a result.

This is not the first time I have owned a games company, though.  I ran a small company, Wheaton Publications, back in the early 80's while I was still in law school - ran it right into the ground.  Despite having two pretty good, well-reviewed games, the company was massively under-capitalized and had to be shuttered within 18 months.  

While it was painful at the time, I remember how much I learned from the experience.  While I am no Rockefeller, my financial position has improved a bit since I was a poor law student living in a basement and eating mac and cheese 4 times a week.  I still have good games (including one I which I am about to launch in the next couple of weeks -- if you are interested you can get more information here).  So, who knows?  Maybe I'll make it 24 months this time!

Interactive Online Timeline Of Events In Egypt Since Mubarak Stepped Down (Infographic)

One of our students, Bridget Finn, recently put together a pretty cool product using Dipity, an online timeline tool, to show the timeline of significant events in Egypt since Mubarak stepped down. 

She intends to continue to update the timeline with a specific focus on women's issues and social media, so check back in a few days and see what she has done with it!

Egypt on Dipity.

You Should Follow Me On Twitter! (I'm Not Kidding -- @kwheaton)

I'm not dead.

I do appreciate the emails (well, email, anyway...) expressing some measure of concern about my health given my infrequent posting schedule over the last several months but I have an excuse. 

I have been busy trying to figure out Twitter.

I know, I know; it seemed useless and futile to me as well.  It felt for so many years like this big swamp of Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher at one end and people yakking about what they had for lunch at the other. 

Quite recently, though, it has become something different for me.  It began with a simple decision I made this last summer to migrate my "link list" stuff to Twitter.  Link lists are what bloggers call those long lists of hyperlinks they package in a post for their readers.  They are pretty much a staple of any blog -- when you can't think of anything else to write, you do a link list.

Except that most of the stuff I read -- good stuff -- never made it to a link list at all.  Writing it up takes time and I don't have enough of that.  Twitter seemed like a good way to broadcast the good stuff I had found or, increasingly, have sent to me, without busting the social media, fiddling-with-stuff, time budget.

It worked, too.  More importantly, it led me to explore Twitter more deeply.  Most people familiar with the tool already know it to be an excellent source of real time information and, with a little effort, an outstanding stream of curated news and information.  We have even used it to explore a modern interpretation of the age-old intelligence concept of the "agent network". 

As I move forward, I intend to get back to blogging more.  It is still the best way to express more detailed thoughts about education and intelligence and games and other things that interest me.  Blogs are still, to me, at least, more about the conversation and less about concision.  I have been blogging now for over five years and I just don't see myself giving it up.

Still -- you should follow me on Twitter!