Given my new free agent status I have had a lot more time to just sit down and talk with people. Some new and some that I have known for years. Discussions range from how are the kids, to general networking, and some are my seeking advice as I ponder what to do next.
On Friday I had the chance to sit down with someone I had not met before and do some networking. He and I share some common background and we were set up by a mutual friend I spoke to a few weeks ago about some of my thoughts on doing a startup. We did the normal back and forth getting to know each other and then we got to talking about why I thought I wanted to start a company. It was really interesting as he posed the question “do you know what kind of person you are?” Being in Boulder I half expected the next part to go into something about what my sign was, but instead he described what he thought were the four kind of people in business based on his working with new companies and CEOs.
- Creators: They are idea people and just love making new things.
- Builders: They can take ideas and make them real.
- Scalers: They can take a business and grow it.
- Managers: They can take a business and more effectively manage it.
These categories seem simple enough and next we talked about what I have done in my past and where it mostly fit on this rough continuum. The point being that there is no “right” place to be, but it is good to understand where you might naturally gravitate.
When I look at my career it has mostly been in the build area, then the create and most recently in the scale. Anyway, this felt a lot like going through the Myers-Briggs test (I am an ENTP) as it provides a data point which at times might help one reflect on why they approach things the way they do.
Posted by shanepearson 
