By: Bob Crutchfield

I have recently been reading, and would highly recommend, a very good book by Guy Kawasaki called Selling the Dream. Guy worked as a “Product Evangelist” in the early days at Apple, and after reading his book, I can see why. He is able to make very complex ideas come across as obvious. Guy defines evangelism as “the process of convincing people to believe in your product or idea as much you do. It means selling your dream by using fervor zeal, guts and cunning”.

As I read further into his book, the more I began to see that there is a fine line between evangelism and dogmatism for early stage entrepreneurs. Webster’s defines evangelism as great enthusiasm, fervor or zeal for a particular cause. In the case of those of us who are drawn to entrepreneurial ventures, we express our business evangelism by attempting to convert investors and customers to our business beliefs. We do this by passionately conveying our personal faith in our creative ideas, products and/or services in such a way that generates a desired response. Every early stage businessperson desires confirmation that his/her dream is on track through receiving investment capital or a customer buying our products or services. But how many of us would stubbornly hold on to a belief in which we received no benefit?

As I visit with founders and CEOs of early stage bio-technology and life sciences companies, it is interesting how evangelism can sometimes take on shades of dogmatism. Webster’s defines dogmatism as the tendency to express strongly held opinions in a way that suggests they should be accepted without question. As early stage entrepreneurs, we should have regular reality checks to insure that our evangelical passion does not devolve into unproductive dogmatism. We should constantly challenge the market efficacies of our products and services and question how can they be improved. We should also ask that our teams, customers, friends, families, and even strangers, do the same.

Leadership is built around embracing a desire for constant improvement in order to produce the best products or services for our customers and to become better people. The best companies are those with products or services that are constantly being tweaked and changed to better accommodate the needs of their customers. If you establish an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity in yourself when your company is small, you will be far more likely to build a growth company that doesn’t have to kick the dogmatism.