What's the link between Start-Ups and Mountaineering?

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A link between entrepreneurship and mountain climbing? Don’t entrepreneurs like to spend all of their time in from of the dim glow of a computer screen late at night? At first, the late night, caffeine-induced desk sessions seem to differ entirely from peaking a mountain. However, there are some links to be drawn between striving to excel in mountaineering and daring to innovate in the start-up world.

Personal Challenge

The act of conquering a mountain is yours and yours alone. Though you will certainly meet others on your way up, and it is not a completely solitary or non-competitive pursuit at all times, most of the real competition is with yourself. The drive of the mountain is to make it to the top, and when you see a sign that says the elevation has topped 10,000 you are asking yourself how much more to the top. Startup founders are not going to be inclined to settle for less than the peak, and are going to do everything to get to the top.

Peace and Quiet

Startup founder Paul Graham has laid out what potential computer entrepreneurs are interested in, in order to explain why places such as the Bay Area attract so many startup founders:

“Most nerds like quieter pleasures. They like cafes instead of clubs; used bookshops instead of fashionable clothing shops; hiking instead of dancing; sunlight instead of tall buildings. A nerd's idea of paradise is Berkeley or Boulder.”

When it comes down to it, the clean air, tranquility, and solitude of a mountain top can give you time to think and reflect, and get away from the thousands of thoughts and distractions of the office setting, giving truly novel and amazing ideas room to take shape.

Discipline, Preparedness, and Inventiveness

Any journey up a mountain – which is in effect an adversary that is monumentally huger, older, and has vanquished more challengers than you – requires some planning. You must work out when to start the journey, what time of year is best, how much water to bring, whether items like snow shoes, crampons, poles, ponchos, first aid, and flashlights will be required, and the most effective plan to reach the top. Sometimes you may have to get creative and improvise if your best laid plans do not go as you expected. Though both mountaineering and entrepreneurship both entail the spirit of risk taking, a good risk taker does not jump into any situation completely blind.

-bmt

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