The public policy arena is rife with problems to solve and opportunities to create—an entrepreneur’s specialty. SPN staff asked Whitney Johnson how she thinks we could collaborate with entrepreneurs to solve public policy challenges. Johnson co-founded Rose Park Advisors with Clayton Christensen, is an advisor to the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards and author of Dare, Dream, Do, and was a featured speaker at the
2014 SPN Annual Meeting.

SPN: How do you define an entrepreneur?

Whitney: In the strictest sense of the word, an entrepreneur is a person who starts a business. He or she has a plan to make money and acquire the resources needed—human capital or otherwise—to make the plan work. That person then takes responsibility for the success or failure of the enterprise.

A few years ago, Entrepreneur magazine compiled a list of the 500 fastest growing companies in
the United States. What surprised me was how these entrepreneurs had grown their business. Only 28 percent of those businesses had access to bank loans or lines of credit. Only 18 percent had access to equity, and only three-and-a-half percent were backed by venture capitalists. The study showed that at least 50 percent of those businesses—and perhaps as many as 70 percent—had grown by bootstrapping, starting with the cash they had on hand and the cash they generated as they grew their businesses. Those findings are powerful because they show that, to be an entrepreneur, you don’t have to be young, geeky, male, or wealthy. You can be older, non-tech savvy, a woman, and on a budget. One of the biggest predictors of success is simply a willingness to start.

Another important predictor of success is the ability to persuade. To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to get buy-in for your ideas and help people see the future you see. In addition to setting goals and taking initiative, an entrepreneur has to be able to paint a picture of a future in which consumers will want or need to buy that product or service.

Even for an idea entrepreneur—a person who is trying to move forward a cause—these criteria still hold: you don’t have to be young, and you don’t have to have money. You just need a willingness to start and an ability to persuade. Behind that ability, you must have a belief that what you’re doing will accrue to the benefit of you and the greater community.

SPN: What drives entrepreneurs to innovate and seek solutions? 

Whitney: People don’t buy products. Instead, they hire products to do a job for them. People innovate when they have looked for a product or service they want to hire and find it doesn’t exist. So they end up saying to themselves,
“I need to go out and make this happen.” When people start dreaming like this, they are hungering for a better life. That leads to heightened engagement, and then they become problem solvers. Ed Hoffman, chief knowledge officer at NASA, said, “Dreams lead to problems, and problems lead to innovation.” I believe that innovation is one of the foundations of entrepreneurship.

So whenever you have a problem, the problem presents an opportunity to find a way around, over, or underneath.
That is an opportunity to innovate.

SPN: The battlefield around which our fiercely independent think tanks unite is when we contend for judgment made by customers in the marketplace, not in political chambers. This age-old challenge will never go away, but how might we in the freedom movement better address it? 

Whitney: When officials pass legislation, they hire the legislation to do a job. It’s human nature to protect what we’ve built, including businesses. Think tanks can help legislators think more broadly about legislation: What job do they want this legislation to do? Who does it help? Who does it hinder? Does it create more jobs? While the elected official may have a personal desire to get re-elected, how can you help them weigh that desire against the greater good? Those questions may seem obvious, but I think most of us forget to ask them in the course of our day-to-day jobs.

Policy organizations can also learn from entrepreneurs when it comes to branching out from a target audience or a natural customer base, such as legislators who share your position. Let’s imagine that I come to you with a plan to start a business. I believe there’s a huge opportunity, and I’ve got all the projections. Having that information means someone else has likely scoped out that opportunity.
If I move forward, I’ll take on competitive risk because someone else is already there. On the other hand,
I could come to you and say I don’t really know how big this market is, but I’m fairly confident there’s an unmet need. That’s market risk. It feels more risky than competitive risk because there’s more uncertainty initially. But the data show it’s actually less risky because you don’t have any competitors.

From a policy standpoint, consider taking on market risk. When a legislator has a hot-button issue, an issue they stand for and were elected on, it will be tough to change their mind on that issue. If you try, you are taking on competitive risk. But if you will become familiar with their platform and reach out to them on an issue they care about and their political identity doesn’t hinge on it, then you are taking on market risk. The odds are that you’ll see success because there’s less competition for you and lower risk for the legislator.

SPN: Successful entrepreneurs/innovators fail forward. What do they know and learn from failure that would help policy/idea innovators position themselves for success?

Whitney: I’ve learned in working with entrepreneurs that they fail fast at the low end of the curve when they are solving small problems. The truly successful entrepreneurs also have the nerve to risk big failures and the resilience to bounce back. When you dare to disrupt, you dare to fail. It’s part of the package. Consider Steve Jobs. We usually think of Jobs as the guy who unveiled amazing new products, but he was also the guy who curled up in a fetal position in an unfurnished apartment after the Apple board fired him in 1985. He could bounce back. When you take on big challenges that feel like windmills, you must dare to fail and know you can bounce back.

Surviving and learning from failure also requires a deep sense of mission, of caring.
I saw firsthand at the SPN Annual Meeting that people in this movement care very deeply about freedom and helping people lead better lives.

It also means that you are clear on the metrics you are using to determine whether you are succeeding or failing. What are yours? Is it to write position papers? Is it to have a conversation with each of your legislators, help them understand what you believe, and find common ground? Is it to make the process of starting a business easier for people in your state? You will have metrics that are particular to you, but there is a necessary one that is universal: are you showing up? Are you showing up to have conversations with people on the other side of your aisle and swapping stories?
Are you focusing on the process, knowing
the outcome will naturally follow?

SPN: Before this Annual Meeting, you didn’t know SPN or the freedom network existed—a shortcoming on our part. How would you recommend we make more meaningful impact and attract entrepreneurs to become leaders in advancing the freedom human flourishing requires? 

Whitney: The one thing I remember most about the Annual Meeting is Patti Morrow’s story. It was eye-opening for me. I had no idea what barriers entrepreneurs like Patti were up against. What that says to me is that a lot of other people don’t know either.

In order to serve your legislators, your communities, and entrepreneurs, I think it’s important to know and communicate what you stand for. That’s where your white papers come in; they are the logic piece of what you want to accomplish, which are foundational.  And then focus on stories like Patti’s. Stories are what will change people’s hearts and appeal to their better natures.

This reminds me of a story about Intuit. Intuit wanted to change the lives of 1.2 billion people in India. They sent three engineers to rural India to figure something out. One day these engineers got caught in a torrential downpour at a bus stop with some farmers. They started talking, and the engineers learned that the farmers didn’t have access to commodity prices. The engineers realized it was a problem that needed to be solved. They decided to start texting the farmers information about prices and buyers to see whether it was helpful for them. Turns out it was. Now Intuit has a sophisticated text messaging platform that two million farmers are using and their bottom line is up by
20 percent.

If Intuit had not gone to the place where the farmers were, they would not have known what problem needed to be solved.

The same is true for think tanks. To find entrepreneurs who care about joining the freedom movement, think tanks have to meet them where they are. Once think tanks engage with organizations like Vistage, YPO, or Chambers of Commerce, they will find many entrepreneurs who need the network’s help. That’s tremendous common ground.
As you work alongside these entrepreneurs, you will have the opportunities to influence minds and hearts.