“You have to get beyond what you want to do, and beyond what you think you ought to do, and only then can you see the clear light that shows you what to do.”

— Man at Quaker Meeting

It is known that vision-led founders and teams perform better. On the macro, more abstract level, an authentic vision is a manifestation of one’s ‘spirit’. Individuals who are led by it feel that they represent something bigger and more important than their immediate own needs, and teams who are characterised by having a ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ and a clear shared vision experience stronger feelings of meaning and belonging. ‘Spiritually intelligent’ startups are better able to surpass obstacles, to be more creative and agile than others and to move far faster than them.

From the other side of the table, to be research-oriented means to be rooted in and count on ‘objective’ information, data and analytics and to rely upon these in decision making. Successful startup founders are mostly characterised by strong research skills; they are curious, autodidactic and have a profound knowledge of their business environment as a whole. When they plan or approach a problem, they rely not only on their solid domain knowledge, but also on fresh data-based insights they’ve collected themselves, usually from more than one source. These people, by the way, stand out a mile to experienced investors and are highly appreciated by them.

In startups, both approaches need to co-exist. This requirement is not paradoxical – on the contrary – these seemingly contradictory approaches actually feed each other and improve each other’s ‘quality’.

Relying on data and analytics makes our spirit stronger. It helps us to be more accurate with our ‘gut feeling’ and to channel our entrepreneurial instincts into the correct, timely and successful directions. On the other hand, having a lucid vision frames our mission’s borders and provides us with a clearer context in which we can operate freely and creatively. Being connected to our spirit helps us to make decisions even while having some missing pieces in the puzzle (a common problem in early stage startups). It enables us to empower our rational decision-making with intuition and to boost our innovativeness.  

This co-existence of contradictions has become a must for successful entrepreneurs, especially in the past decade. That means that we need more and more ‘ambidextrous’ founders who are able to think in terms of ‘both’/’and’, rather than the in the old-economy binary way. On the ‘team’ level, it will probably turn out to be that successful companies are those who have a noticeable authentic spirit and remarkable data-oriented working ethics. These companies will be probably the ones to successfully navigate through the tumultuous, contradictory and hyper-fast business environment of our times.

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By Keren Beit-Cohen
Inventor of the 3P Model for Startup Assessment and Business Development (2014)
Founder CEO at VÖR, Investment Intelligence Platform for Startups
Business intelligence and pre-investment startup assessment expert in the Israeli and EU ecosystems.

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Grantrepreneurs

“Young founders should be mindful about not becoming GrantrepreneUrs and investors weighing up opportunities should view GrantrepreneUrs as a potential red flag - a negative signal as per their overall entrepreneurial strength.” 

There appears to be a growing trend amongst entrepreneurs, particularly within Europe. Founders are becoming fascinated with grants and government funding, often at the expense of growing their early-stage ventures in the ‘common’ investor-funding (or bootsrapping) way. There is nothing inherently wrong with seeking grants; In many cases, grants are a positive contribution to startups’ growth. But it also embeds a certain risk for early-stage companies, especially when founders are being drawn to their relatively easy-to-get nature, spending too much time on several grant applications, or counting on repeated and follow-on financing from this type.

These serial grant-seekers, or “Grantrepreneurs”, as I’ve coined them, are relying on governmental sources to fund their ventures, thinking, consciously or not, that by doing so they will manage to avoid the ‘necessary evil’ of private equity fundraising. As a matter of fact, they might actually decrease their chances to reaching a healthy growth, ‘genuine’ traction indicators and a better product-market fit.

That’s why young founders should be mindful about not becoming Grantrepreneurs and investors weighing up opportunities should view Grantrepreneurs as a potential red flag - a negative signal as per their overall entrepreneurial strength. 

But how can you strike the right balance as a founder or investor? 

 

The Advantages of Grant-Funding

Source of Funding  - As startups simply do not exist without a source of funding, when a founding team doesn’t have much in the way of personal or friends-and-family economic resources, grants can help cash-strapped entrepreneurs take those vital first steps. 

No strings attached (sometimes) - What’s excellent about some of the grants is that they don’t have many of the strings that are attached to private funding, such as equity. Better still, many grants have no repayment terms, so you are securing what is effectively free money for your new business. 

Grants are relatively accessible and straightforward – Though the grant process can be long and arduous, at least the terms, procedures, and requirements are clear (or transparent) for everyone to see. And as long as you’re eligible, you can apply.

Lighter due diligence (if at all) - Grants represent a much higher chance of securing funding than seeking support from VCs and angels. The selection criteria are often much broader, and the due diligence is certainly much lighter than checks carried out by angels or private firms.

Equality – Some of the grant providers implement equality values in their selection criteria. That’s one of the most important (and my favourite) advantage in grants. Certain grants can be fully dedicated for, or set quotas for groups such as female entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs from challenged geographical areas, or from certain backgrounds. That, naturally, increases the chances to get these grants if as an entrepreneur you belong to one of these groups.

“Investors like to invest in what others have already invested. Sounds trivial but grant-funding can assist startups by being a positive signal for other investors.”

Additional forms of support - governmental grants sometimes deliver more than monetary support. Depending on the awarding organisation, you may also receive networking support, access to office spaces or piloting options.

Increases your chances to follow-on investments – Investors like to invest in what others have already invested. Sounds trivial but grant-funding can assist startups by being a positive signal for other investors. Research shows that public startup support comes with higher likelihood of follow-on investments, especially by other government VCs and sometimes by angels (however not by private VCs).

The Disadvantages of Grant-Funding

Grants are bogged down in bureaucracy (and paperwork) - From reading calls for applications, to filling forms, going through selection processes, legal documents and negotiating the final amount and conditions (with government employees) - some grants can take many months to secure. Time is money for both a founder and a startup business, and founders may have run out of runway or lose market momentum, before a grant arrives in their business bank account. 

Smaller tickets - While private funding sources do come with more strings, they tend to give founders a lot more money which is what needed to get the idea off the ground. EU grants are usually nowhere near as big, meaning founders will have to go through the process several times to secure a comparative amount of funding.

Free Money is Disappearing - More and more grant providers are moving to the direction of tying their funding to equity. That means that as a founder you give a percentage of your company to a government organisation, with all the implications apply. Ideally, giving up a percentage of your company should come not only in exchange for money, but also with high-level and impactful business development support and network – benefits which are normally provided by investors such as angels or private VCs.

“There is something in the inevitably hard, and often painful, stages of private fundraising, which help founders to sharpen-up their business model, improve their problem-solving definition and strengthen their business-experience and leadership skills”. 

Grants might be restrictive with how you can spend them - While angels and VCs may well deposit the money into your account and (hopefully) leave you to go and do what needs to be done, the process is not always that simple when dealing with grants. Especially if the grants are bigger, they might be tied to a rigid spending plan which you cannot alter, even if circumstances change within your business. In other words, you lose the agility that is so vital in early-stage companies. 

Avoiding the necessary pain? – That’s perhaps the most important point here. Grant funding, and in particular serial grant-funding, goes against the principal ethos (and the ‘common’ path as we know it) of successful startups. There is something in the inevitably hard, and often painful, stages of private fundraising, which help founders to sharpen-up their business model, improve their problem-solving definition and strengthen their business-experience and leadership skills. 

Not only being constantly challenged by potential investors, founders who go on fundraising journeys are also required to demonstrate real traction in their business, or in other words – present concrete proofs that their startup is having some level of popularity out there. However hard it may be, founders should strive to achieve minimal traction before they fundraise, otherwise the money might come too early and sabotage their growth.

Should You Seek Grants as an Entrepreneur? Should You Invest in Startups Relying Upon Grants? 

As we normally tend to analyse things, it’s not an matter of black or white, but rather a matter of black and white, co-existing, and it’s the context, and the right balances made, that should provide each one of us with the ‘right’ answer.

In short, it’s better not to rely upon grants as an entrepreneur. If a grant perfectly aligns with what you need, feel free to pursue it. If it helps you buy time or to (relatively-quickly) pilot and validate your business idea, then great. Just make sure that the terms of the funding don’t sabotage later efforts to raise money, that it’s within your overall strategy and vision framework, and that you give very little equity away.

As an investor you should be wary of entrepreneurs who invest too much time and energy in securing governmental support rather than focusing on scaling their product to market. If you see several grant investments on the books during due diligence, you should seriously question the startup leader’s ability to solve problems and scale the company.

Good luck!

Keren Beit-Cohen

Inventor of the 3P Model / Startup Investment Advisor

“Always be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn, then always be a unicorn.”

— Elle Lothlorien

We, too, have watched Jeff Orlowski’s documentary The Social Dilemma on Netflix. Although it was not news to us that Facebook’s algorithm has evolved to be a very efficient tool for human behaviour manipulation, the film has emphasised to us the unfair use of technology for the purposes of gaining power, control, and other material and non-material benefits. We’ve also conducted further research on this topic, gathering more information and data to make an informed decision.

As we believe in a co-existence of contradictions, we’re well aware of the positive aspects Facebook might present as a social tool. However, these positive aspects are obviously being used to make other people (more) rich, powerful, and sometimes malicious, at the expense of the wider population being more powerless and less free. That’s totally uncool.

We feel that, by being present on Facebook as a commercial entity, we’re being used as another brick in a wall purposed to lead us to a more polarised, fake, and exploitative world.

“Each one of us is a small light and all together we shine bright ”

— Traditional Hanukkah song

Our number of followers and modest advertising budget will not make Mark Zuckerberg quiver. In fact, it might not bother anybody. However, we will all sleep better at night.

We apologise for any inconvenience to our Facebook page followers, and thank you for your trust. We hope that you’d continue to show your support in our growth by continuing to follow us on LinkedIn and by making use of our usual alternative contact methods.

Yours,

Keren Beit Cohen and the 3P model for startup business development.

In a previous post we’ve explained what the Co-Existence of Contradictions (CEOC) is, and why it’s a useful paradigm through which startup leaders should view their business right now. If you haven’t read it, I recommend that you do so to give the following article some more context. In this post, I would like to give a few examples to how the philosophy of CEOC is helping us as startup leaders, and how it upgrades business performance and success.

A / CEOC dramatically improves our business diagnosis

The CEOC helps us to see reality in a clearer, more accurate way. It helps to capture the complexity of life and simplify it into actionable outputs. In the field of strategy, seeing things clearly is the foremost condition required to diagnose a situation as close to reality as possible. Once we’ve achieved a good diagnosis, then, and only then, can we make the right decisions and act accordingly.

Among other stages in the business development process, the 3P Model applies the CEOC during the business diagnosis phase. By doing that, it brings us closer to realise the ‘real’ situation of our business. For example, entrepreneurs who follow the 3P Model go through quarterly diagnosis routines for their business. In these routines they use the 3P Canvas that helps us not only to differentiate between Product, People, and Playground analyses, but - and here comes the CEOC contribution – it also asks us to take into account both ‘positive’ elements of each one of these 3 Ps, as well as the ‘less positive’ ones. In the 3P Canvas, these two sides of our business picture are called ‘to maintain’ and ‘to improve’ parts.

This might sound trivial. However, you’ll be surprised to hear how much this ability, to ‘objectively’ consider both sides, is so unnatural to us. For many reasons, we have an inherited tendency to highlight the ‘to maintain’ elements of our business, and to ignore the stuff that needs to improve. We’re not talking about situations in which we’re pitching, or writing our investment-decks - I’m talking about the internal work we carry out to diagnose our business for the purpose of developing it. We just naturally tend to ignore the ‘to improve’ side of it. It doesn’t feel very nice and it seems incompatible with our ‘Instagramable’ reality, which constantly leads us to believe that we must live in a continuous picture-perfect state.

The problem is that we can’t improve, nor develop, if we can’t consider and face up to the ‘to improves’ in our business. While it’s true that, as business leaders, confronting the less-positive sides of our products is not the most pleasant thing to experience at first, it’s an essential long-term habit that drastically upgrades our business observation (and thus, our business decision-making).

The 3P Canvas is used by teams for quarterly business review and planning and is considering both ‘positive’ and ‘less positive’ aspects of the company.

B / The CEOC increases our entrepreneurial confidence

Not bringing up the elements which we know are needed to improve, might indeed reduce unpleasant feelings -for the short term. For the longer term however, it’s a confidence killer. There’s no point in ignoring things which we are (consciously or unconsciously) aware of, as they will eventually pop up. Also, we might feel immediate relief while focusing only on the positive parts of our business, but the truth is that the feelings involved in ‘hiding’ the less-positive elemnts are not contributing to our self-esteem and entrepreneurial courage.

Once we are ‘forced’, a s a matter of routine, to start observing and pragmatically taking care of things that are needed to improve (in our products, in ourselves and in the way we’re functioning in our playground) a kind of a miracle happens: we’re not only contributing to our business performance, but we also cure some unconfident parts in us as entrepreneurs.

Lat but not least, on the team level - startup leaders who implement the CEOC in their companies as work culture, also benefit from a lighter, yet more secure, working atmosphere and a more efficient work flow.

C / IT develops one of the most important 21st-century skills

The CEOC is embedded in the 3P Model in a manner that makes it simple and effortless to use. It helps startup leaders to benefit just by following the 3P Model methodologies. Ambidexterity is what the science calls the ability to simultaneously use both right and left hemispheres in our brain. In management studies, it refers to the ability to cope with and manage the contradictory powers or demands of any given situation, and is considered as an important 21st-century managerial skill.

The CEOC parts of the 3P Model train our entrepreneurial brain to capture the two seemingly-contradicting sides of our business. By utilising the 3P Canvas Routines mentioned above, and through our training of entrepreneurs that focuses on managing the contradicting demands in their ongoing business lives, we help to improve entrepreneurial ambidexterity. Rather than trying to separate and distinguish between ‘contradictions’, or ‘choosing’ one of the two, startup leaders learn how to acknowledge the contributory and developmental nature of their co-existence.

The charts below demonstrate co-existence of two (out of numerous) contradictions existing in startups business development. According to the 3P Model, these contradictions should be co-managed and co-exist. Some of our clients actively seek for CEOC couples in their businesses to assure an accurate, wining strategy, we can teach you how to do it too.

In distinguishing between PRODUCT, PEOPLE and PLAYGROUND, we are both separating and integrating these 3 pillars of our business.

Entrepreneurs must put themselves under the influence of both these opposite vectors.

I’m Keren Beit Cohen, the developer of the 3P Model and the leader of its entrepreneurial education activity and implementation. I’m a business strategy nerd who’s happy to share the 3P Model with the world, as well as the way it contributes to the startup ecosystem. So feel absolutely free to contact me with questions, ideas, or thoughts.

The 3P Model has been helping startups, investors, and entrepreneurial-education leaders since 2014. Our mission is to share the holistic 360-degree framework for startup development with as many entrepreneurs as we can, for as long as it delivers considerable value to them. We give 3P workshops around Europe, and ‘thanks’ to COVID-19, we now deliver our insights digitally across the world. We advise universities, accelerators, and schools in entrepreneurship curriculum development. Find out more about how to get involved!

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“Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life”

— C.G. Yung

The 3P Model is a framework and 360-degree business development tool for startups and small businesses, and the Co-Existence of Contradictions (CEOC) is the all-encompassing paradigm that constructs the 3P Model. It is what shapes its structure, its research approach and methodology.

To explain what ‘paradigm’ means on the practical level, imagine putting coloured lenses over your eyes, while looking at and dealing with your business. The lenses make you see things in a certain way and cause you to act accordingly. The CEOC paradigm does the same thing. As a ‘philosophy’ or ‘world-view’ it constructs the way in which we see our businesses and ourselves, as its leaders.

 According to the Co-Existence of Contradictions:

1. Nothing in life is 100% ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

2. Every social phenomenon in the world consists of ‘things’ and their ‘opposites’ (this assumption is broader than and includes the previous one). Examples of pairs of opposites:

   Positive – Negative;

   Formal – Informal;

   Feminine – Masculine;

   Freedom – Constrains;

   Planned – Emergent;

   Internal – External; etc.

3. This co-existence of opposites, or ‘contradictions’ is not at all ‘strange’ or ‘paradoxical’, but rather a natural element in life. By using the CEOC we’re just observing life as it is. This ability is called ‘ambidexterity’ which means using both left and right brain hemispheres equally.

4. The opposites in each ‘contradictory’ pair are complimentary to one another. One can’t exist without the other and it’s only their co-existence that makes things complete.

5. This co-existence of contradictions is constantly dynamic. The opposites aren’t static but rather continuously change towards themselves (because nothing in life is static), but also as a reaction to a change in the other opposite. That means that every change in one ‘opposite’ also brings some kind of a change in the other ‘opposite’.

6. The dynamic interplay of the opposites is how we evolve. This evolution is never linear.

Sounds complicated? In fact, It’s not. The beauty of the CEOC is that it can be simply applied on everything. It is so flexible that one can use it also in a very basic and lean way, without reducing its impact and depth.

Why even considering a philosophy in startup management?

There’s a vast research on how the CEOC leverages management and leadership skills. It helps decision makers to grasp a fuller, bigger picture of their business ‘reality’ and hence, enables them to navigate in a more efficient, smarter way. The CEOC is the only managerial point-of-view which enables business leaders to capture complexed situations, with contradictory demands and constant pressure to make the right decisions within very short time slots.

The 3P Model humbly brings this ancient wisdom into the world of startups and into business and personal development of entrepreneurs.

 

Ancient wisdom brought into the startup world

 The Co-Existence of Contradictions is used in Organisational Management Theory to deal with managerial challenges in corporations and other big organisations. In the 20th Century this theory became more and more popular and was known as ‘Organisational Dialectics’, ‘Organisational Paradox’, ‘Ambidexterity’ and other streams of this rich world-view.

 In the 19th Century scholars and philosophers such as Fichte, Hegel and Marx used dialectics to analyse sociological phenomena and historical events. Before them ancient Greek philosophers such as Zeno, Socrates and Plato dealt with paradoxes and dialectics to better understand ideas and to get closer to ‘the truth’.

However, the earliest origins of CEOC are rooted in eastern philosophies such as Chinese Taoism (with its yin-yang symbol) Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism and Kabbalah which are using CEOC to discuss natural phenomena and the relationship between man and God, and set out, in many different ways, that opposites need not to be resolved, but rather embraced and transcended. The 3P Model humbly brings this ancient wisdom into the world of start-ups and into the business and personal development of 21st Century entrepreneurs.

How is CEOC applied into the practice?

Find out about how COEC is being used by startups and business leaders in the following short article.

Interested to know how to level up your entrepreneurial and management skills with the CEOC? There are many ways in which you can do that. Contact us to find out how. 

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We give a lot of respect to entrepreneurs and only deliver fresh, useful insights to you.

by Keren Beit Cohen

3 min read

It’s not uncommon that people in the startup ecosystem get confused between ‘Advisor’, ‘Mentor’ and ‘Coach’. Despite their nuances, the purpose of all three is to support, encourage and facilitate entrepreneurs’ growth. Startups are characterised by the need in rapid growth (and in an uncertain environment) so when this help arrives – and it’s in the right form – it can be a blessing. As entrepreneurs it’s essential, however, to note the differences between advisors, mentors and coaches, because your choice has direct implications on the following:

1.     Choosing the right person to answer your specific needs.

2.     Understanding which ‘psychological contract’ applies to your relationship with them.

3.     Knowing what to expect and what to consider a realistic goal while interacting with each of them.

Here you’ll find a general overview of each role’s characteristics, as well as a comparisons made through several key parameters. Like many other things in life, nothing here is ‘black or white,’ but rather an idea of what the respective professional scopes are for an Advisor, Mentor or Coach.

Advisor

An advisor is a person who’s an expert in a specific subject matter. He or she could be, for example, a lawyer who provides you with legal advice, an accountant who gives you financial insights, a business strategy professional who helps you with structuring your business growth, or an engineer that answers your technical questions. Not necessarily belonging to a specific occupation, an advisor could also be someone with considerable knowledge or significant experience in a broader domain, such as building successful companies, or going through several exits throughout their career. An advisor will provide you with information, answers, recommendations or solutions – depending on the reason you turned to them from the first place.

Key words: professional, knowledgeable, relevant, efficient.

Duration: One time or on several occasions, a shorter-term relationship.

Measurable outcome? Yes.

Paid? Yes (or at least should be, according to us).

Does an advisor-client relationship include a personal element? No more than in any other supplier-client relationship. 

Mentor

A mentor is a role-model, and someone you wish to emulate somehow, sometime in the future. Whether it be their personality, their business success, their spirituality or wisdom – something within these people make us want to learn from them, listen to what they have to say, or get their opinions on situations we’re facing in life.

A mentor-mentee relationship normally happens spontaneously and is not a structured, formal connection. A mentor doesn’t work as a mentor for her living and is normally busy with her own work, projects and ongoing tasks. Sometimes, a mentor in not even someone you meet, but perhaps a role model you read about, follow online, and gain inspiration from through their acts, writings or ideas. There’s an emotional element to the way mentees perceive their mentors.

Key words: senior, role-model, inspiring, emotional-element.

Duration: longer-term relationship, could be months to years, or more than a decade.

Measurable? Only if you can measure inspiration. Mentors’ impact is recognised throughout the process, but predominately retrospectively.

Paid? no (or at least shouldn’t be, according to us).

Personal element? Absolutely.

Coach

A coach will work with you on improving a given set of skills or reaching a specific goal in your life. Management skills coaches, public speaking coaches, or coaches who work with their clients on achieving specific pre-defined goals are all examples of how coaches might impact entrepreneurs.

Key words: trainer, focus, goals, results.

Duration: Several meetings, preferably on a regular basis, with a defined start and end point.

Measurable? Yes. It’s best if the means of measurement are mutually set in advance.

Paid? Yes.

Personal element? Not necessarily.

Those are the fundamental differences between these three critical roles. We hope this evaluation will help you choose better (if you’re the client), or that it will sharpen your business focus and the services you offer (if you’re a professional within this field). We believe that everybody, at certain points during their career, should get a professional advice, work on improving themselves to reach their goals, or gain inspiration from a role-model figure. These processes help us learn, reflect and evolve.

Our 3P Tip:

Product. The right product (or service, in this case) should be the one which addresses your needs. Make a brief assessment of what you and/or your business need right now, before you decide which function is the best fit for your specific objectives: advisor, mentor or coach.

People. Make sure that both you and your advisor / mentor / coach agree on the nature, purpose and goals of your engagement. Vagueness helps no one; set measurable targets at the beginning of your relationship. Also, keep in mind that a good advisor, mentor or coach will always place you at the centre of the process. Your questions, your problems, your goals. However experienced, successful or knowledgeable he or she might be, once the process has begun, all that matters is how they help you to become more experienced, successful or knowledgeable - depending on the purpose of your engagement.

Playground. Do your market research. A brief investigation will always improve your chances of making the right selection. By reading an individual’s profiles, websites, blogs or other publications, you can get a notion of who they are, ensuring they are a good fit before choosing to work with them.

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3P Model is a 21st-century business development tool for startups and small-to-medium-sized companies. It includes The 3P Canvas, the philosophy of Co-Existence of Contradictions, and an interdisciplinary approach.

We provide advisory services to startups, investors, professionals, and educators in the field of business development and 21st-century entrepreneurial skills as well as offering coaching courses to entrepreneurs.     

Interested? Contact us for more.

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