The Three Most Important Ingredients

In the past decade I’ve been an entrepreneur, seed investor and startup board member. During that time, I’ve learned that the three most important ingredients to the success are #1 people, #2 people, and #3 people. The people that join you, invest in you and partner with you ultimately determine your experience, no matter how good the idea.

At my first company, Recyclebank, we had a business model that provided a solution to a major problem: low recycling rates. 75% of recyclable residential waste, approximately 75m tons per year, is not recycled and ends up in a landfill. The average cost per ton at landfills in the U.S. is approximately $50, so this was a $3.5b problem incurred annually by municipal budgets. I designed and coded the technology enabling us to help solve this problem, but we still lacked one essential thing: industry expertise. 
 
It’s been ten years since we first had the idea for Recyclebank, and today I am experienced and immersed in the waste industry (I recently gave a TEDx talk titled “I love garbage”), but at the time we founded Recyclebank, I was a novice. The first time I truly understood the value of people was when three well-respected industry executives, Bob Milligan, Scott Lamb and Bill Wolfram heard about Recyclebank and offered to join.
 
At the time, two of them had almost as many years of work experience as I did years of life. But that did not matter to them. The only thing that mattered to them was using their experience and skills to work on a mission they shared. I may have been their boss, but they were my teachers. Along with their deep industry expertise, their commitment and character set the tone for a culture that merged a social mission with a strong business model.

I learned another crucial lesson about the importance of people after becoming the seed investor in Linhardt Design—a jewelry company that merges high design with sustainability. The founder and designer, Lisa Linhardt, uses only recycled metals and ethically sourced stones. A portion of the proceeds from each sale funds a scholarship for girls in Kenya. (She once walked 100 miles in Kenya to bring awareness to women’s issues in Africa.) Lisa has strict principles about the type of materials she uses and where they come from, who she works with, and her product’s high design standard. In a few short years, NY Magazine named Linhardt Design its “Critic’s Pick,” Alicia Keys wore Lisa’s jewelry for her album cover, and Jennifer Lopez donned it on the first American Idol she judged.
 
I used to think it was odd that Lisa would describe a person by what she called their “energy” when she first met them. But over the years I learned that Lisa’s sixth sense was always right. Thanks to her, I’ve come to believe our intuition is an evolutionary survival mechanism that has been dulled in the modern age. It is important to listen to it. Don’t put too much emphasis on titles, degrees or pedigree; follow your intuition about people — it always has your best interest at heart.

Recently, I joined the board of DailyFeats — a platform that rewards people for their daily virtuous activities. There are three partners: Veer, Vinay and Morley. They’ve divided up company responsibilities according to what each team member does best and prioritized what is most important for the business. Too often, entrepreneurial ventures with good ideas and a strong start spiral out of control because of ego and self-inflated expectations of power. DailyFeats demonstrates humble maturity: The business gets the most out of its team’s talents while promoting a collaborative spirit among the entire group.

While at Recyclebank, I witnessed the importance of people with good character who were truly dedicated to a mission. They were willing to teach and serve at the same time. From Linhardt Design I witnessed the power of intuition, and learned to follow my own. From DailyFeats I saw the collaborative magic that happens when partners put the business first and support and respect each others’ individual talents.  
 
There are always opportunities to make money. But when the people involved are of shallow character, no matter how much the financial return may be, the cost of the experience is usually greater. And when we come to the end of our days, the only things of true value that we have are our experiences and the choices we made.