Article 02 : Creator ✓, Crusader ✓, Critic ?
Daniel Lubetzky, founder & chairman of KIND (the snack company) appeared as a Guest Shark on the show. Son of a holocaust survivor, Lubetzky brings a fresh perspective on entrepreneurship, business outcomes, and KINDness. He articulated one of the most profound frameworks ever quoted on the show — The three roles of an entrepreneur: The Creator, The Critic, and The Crusader (3 Cs).
We believe the concept not only applies to entrepreneurship but to any pursuit that is nonlinear and non-incremental. Let’s explore the role of a Creator. In this role, it is a must to identify a need, define a problem, and devise an appealing solution. In almost every single pitch on the tank, sharks have been curious about how the entrepreneurs embarked on their journey, what their tipping point was. Nine times out of ten, the most appealing stories are the ones where the entrepreneurs scratched their own itch and realized itching was more universal than they assumed. Vague definitions of problems create vague solutions hence domain knowledge and zealous attitude are crucial to do justice to the role of creator.
Enumerating flaws in someone else’s business is easy however when it comes to ourselves we find 1000s of reasons to justify shortcomings. Being Self-Critical is the second hat that an entrepreneur must wear. Ask tough questions, find flaws, poke holes, try new avenues, and don’t move to the next level without building a strong foundation that is sustainable. This self critic hat helps eliminate flaws and elevates the quality of output. Kevin O’Leary’s (the sassy Shark) has pointed out that forcing your passion on others won’t take you far, making what you say believable with numbers can. If not by passion, people should be won over by logic! While strategizing the execution plan, the entrepreneur must evaluate all options on the table and justify the decisions with strong arguments. The hat of a critic is like the string (“manjha”) that helps a kite fly high, gives it direction, and helps combat against threats from competition. Entrepreneurs ooze confidence when they are self critical and self aware and that is like nerdgasm for the Sharks (if you know you know :P ) and “obsessive viewers like us”.
Once the product is nailed and the self critic is satiated, it is time to conquer the world. That brings us to the third hat of an entrepreneur — Crusader. Established companies have years of data to help strategize how to bring about that 10% growth this year. There are huge repositories on what are the levers & drivers of growth. In the case of smaller enterprises, there’s no data to extrapolate, it is the vision of a Crusader that drives the company. Crusader’s passion and drive rubs off on people, the team wants to devote themselves to the mission, investors want to back them and customers want to pay them.
On the show, Lubetzky unravels this genius observation: Entrepreneurs build a strong product and directly jump to the role of a crusader, they miss wearing the critic hat. In our day to day life as consumers of product we believe quality is critical for success, and as consumers of news, books & social media we believe passion and charisma drives companies, but there’s a lot that doesn’t meet the eye and that LOT is the critic in hiding. We would like to expand on one interesting pitch from the tank.
Afresheet: A fitted-disposable bedsheet business pitched by Maxwell Cohen on Shark Tank S07 E08 sighting a problem for young and messy adults living in big cities. It was targeting the lazy youth. The company failed to identify that people don’t buy things because the company targets a certain demographic — nobody buys something because they’re a 25–30 year-old upper-middle-class male with a college degree living in a metro — but because they go about living their life and some need arises in which they need to solve a problem. The product innovation was novel however its market wasn’t cool college students, rather it was hospitals, mobile vans, and old age homes. Cohen jumped from creator to crusader with his internal bias and that failed him on the show.
When the entrepreneur wears all three hats, they become too difficult to resist and sharks love that! Like Barbara puts it, “Everybody likes a winner!” :)
By Sapna Patni and Ambarish Kulkarni
