Entrepreneurs Vs Managers

"I wasn't doing things I was passionate about," says the Aucklander, who five years down the track has founded a new company, BeyondTheCeiling, offering business mentoring and training. 

"I was doing a lot of shareholder management, administering government grants, board reporting. 

"I realised I needed someone who could do those things, so I spent half a day writing an 'anti-me' role profile."

The person he appointed went on to become the general manager, while Batten got to experience a sense of ‘absolute relief’.

"As an entrepreneur you want to do everything yourself and that's a false mindset," he says. 

"When you outsource your less enjoyed activities, it liberates you to operate in your sphere of excellence again."

The difference between success and failure

Over and over again, versions of this story mark the defining difference between entrepreneurs whose companies succeed, and those whose best efforts fail.

"Start-ups are business reduced to its essence," says the author of "Founders at Work", Jessica Livingston.

"The reason their founders become rich is that startups do what businesses do—create value—more intensively than almost any other part of the economy."

But a time comes when scale - the ultimate objective of any business - dictates that the initial rush of founder enthusiasm is unlikely to be enough to carry the business forward.

One of the most common questions from would-be angel investors is 'what's happening to the founder', says Colin MacKinnon, who heads the New Zealand Venture Capital Association.

"Do they recognise they they're not the person to carry on the business because it's beyond their competencies?

"That's always an interesting conversation for an investor," he observes cryptically.

Campbell Means, at Wellington business development consultancy Igniter, says entrepreneurs tend to be 'obstinate optimists, sometimes to the point where they don't take people with them'.

"That's what's needed to get off the ground, but as it starts to scale, that 'do it by yourself loner approach' and often ignoring what the data is telling you can become a danger."