Between my activities with DreamIt Ventures and my investments as an Angel investor I will by the summer have a stake in more than 30 startup companies. As I described in my prior blog post, when finding the right investment it is a necessity to have a really great idea and a really great founder or team. And as part of that I like to try to understand who I am investing in; what kind of person are they. Will they listen? Accept suggestions? Work hard? Do whatever it takes to succeed and/or survive?
One way I learned years ago to understand people was on the golf course. Before I became a dad and became active in DreamIt and WizeHive I had time to golf. And, after selling my first business, I golfed a lot for a few years. Mostly with friends, but sometimes with business associates. I found that you could really learn a lot about a person on the course in 4 hours when you played golf with them.
How did they react to a poor shot? Did they stomp and hiss or take it in stride? When they were on the green were they aware of everyone else and where their balls were…or did they step all over your putting line? How did they treat the others in the group? Did they enthusiastically compliment someone when they made a great shot? If you had a small wager, how did that affect their play?
My young daughter was off from school this week and being a reformed ice hockey player I took her ice skating one day. Back in the fall we went 4 or 5 times in a month during which time she used rental skates and got progressively braver and was skating without my help. Then over the holidays someone bought her new skates. When we went skating in February she kept falling because her toe pick kept hitting the ice and for the first time ever she wanted to leave early. She also made excuses why she shouldn’t go skating again until I pushed her a bit this week.
When we took the ice this time she held firmly onto my hand for the first 30 minutes or so, which is not her normal independent way of doing things. Slowly I loosened my grip so I was barely holding her hand and after a while I pointed out she could probably skate by herself. So she tried…fell a few times…tried some more and by the end of the session was quite proud of her new found skating ability. So much so that since we were the last two on the ice she wanted me to skate in opposite directions and meet her at the other side before we left the ice.
It made me think a little that any activity gives you a good sense of a person and you should find ways to do them with someone before becoming a partner with them or an investor in them. Take ice skating. When they fall, do they get right back up? Do they hover near the boards or do they race out into the middle and take their chances? Are they cautious about other people skating around them? I find that all these little things add up and can tell you quite a bit about someone – much more than you can learn about them while sitting at a conference room table.