In Silicon Valley, stories abound about the vision, passion and drive of founders and their professed love for their “baby”. Successful startups often have detailed histories which highlight how the founders nurtured their “baby” to cause a catalytic market shift or delivered a new innovative product. However, the stories are from successful startups, not failed ones. So what separates the good entrepreneurs from the great ones and successful startups from failed ones? What part(s) of the story is missing?

I have often mused over the above questions. Assuming that the rudimentary challenges such as marketing timing, technology acceptance, and competitors are relatively equal then we must look to other challenges which contribute to success or failure. With my experiences founding, working in, and advising startups, I find that there is rarely a lack of vision, passion, and drive with the founding entrepreneurs. As a matter of course, the founders love their baby, unconditionally. Without unconditional love, a founder would be hard pressed to make it through the rejection and pessimism that all new startups face. However taken too far, defending against pessimism and professing “blind unconditional love” can manifest as a cognitive bias, which I call “The Baby Bias”. “The Baby Bias”, I believe, is a missing part of the startup story. It is the one of the differences between a good and a great entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs that fall prey to “The Baby Bias” have lost critical key capabilities: perspective and adaptability. Unfortunately, infection with “The Baby Bias” can occur at any stage during the startup cycle. Once infected..........

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"The Baby Bias" – Grand Visions, Dreams and a difference between Success and Failure