Techpreneurship: Integrity Matters

Jeff Amerine

Techpreneurship, with Jeff Amerine

(Jeff Amerine is an IA advisor, entrepreneurship educator, and officer with the University of Arkansas Technology Licensing Office. Each Thursday, his Techpreneurship blog will appear in INOV8. Drop him a line in comments.)

Infomercials, cure-all spamercials, amazing get-rich quick schemes clutter the Internet, our in-boxes and the airwaves.  We’ve become numb to the relentless barrage of “sounds too good to be true” messaging.

I suspect you’re thinking, “where is this knucklehead going with this stream of consciousness?”  Well, there is a point to this particular rant.  At the risk of pointing out what should be obvious to all techpreneurs, I am preparing to sermonize a bit, and I’ll apologize in advance.

Integrity matters, that is my topic this week… As techpreneurs, we continuously claw our way across a minefield of scarcity.  The scarcity of funding, scarcity of talent, scarcity of customers, and scarcity of time define the daunting challenges all early-stage ventures face.  I’ve seen this sometimes cruel gauntlet bring forth the best and worst in entrepreneurs.

The process tests our integrity and our ethics.  We must pass that test to be successful techpreneurs.  Here are some situations that should have only one obvious answer that we can all use as an integrity “gut-check.”

• Say whatever you have to say to get that first round of investment.
• Everybody exaggerates product/service performance claims.
• The business plan is a marketing document; it doesn’t need to reflect reality.
• We have a patented product (when in fact the product is patent pending – big difference).
• We have negotiated a license for the intellectual property (when in fact only discussions have taken place).
• We have X, Y, and Z Fortune 500 customers (when in fact all that has been done are free pilots).
• We have invention-assignment agreements in place with all employees (when in fact the documents weren’t done).
• Just give the early employees stock options that vest over a really long time that have no acceleration clause.  It won’t matter from a dilution standpoint, because we’re going to sell out way before the options vest anyway.

You get the picture.  Aside from the ethical issues, the really foolish aspect of these sort of willful misrepresentations to investors, customers or employees is that they WILL find out the truth!

When they do, the offending techpreneurs may as well leave the country.  Even though the start-up game spans many industries and has many players, the word gets around on “bad actors,” and it sticks.

Once you happen to get a label as someone loose with the truth, that radioactive half-life may as well be forever. Integrity and character are worth far more than any wealth or short-term advantage gained by deception.

Sermon complete.  Please share with me some positive and negative examples of good or bad ethics and integrity you’ve seen in the start-up game.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

CAPTCHA Code