Founders have to adopt the antihero archetype if they want to survive

TikTok sent me my final warning. 

I am at high risk of losing my account, and if I post one more video violating the terms of service, I will be gone. My guilty act? My lifestyle. 

On Thanksgiving day, I posted to TikTok and congratulated a GoWild team member for tagging a really nice whitetail deer. The video ended with a brief photo of Brayden with his buck. The artificial intelligence scanned the video, and I was hit with a heavy handed warning—hunting content is against the TikTok terms of service.

I wasn’t surprised. I’ve fought Big Tech’s battle against my lifestyle for six years. This whole situation reminded me of the first time I was shamed on Facebook for being a hunter and why I started GoWild in the first place. 

I’ve written the Silicon Holler Founding Father newsletter for more than 100 days, sharing vignettes from my life in ad agencies and startups. I’ve largely focused on fundamentals, but today I’m talking about how friction—like TikTok’s blatant beheading of my content—has created my “why” and made me adopt an antihero mindset. I’ll bring it back around to a takeaway that appeals to founders and startup team members.

But first, a step back in time. 

Founded by Facebook’s hate

After suffering through single digit temperatures in deer season, I had finally found success. I was so proud, too, quickly sharing a photo on Facebook. I foolishly thought others would see the hard work required to achieve this moment. Instead, comments began to form under the photo—little barnacles of hate. One hit me hard.

“Do you feel like a man now?”

This question hung in my head, like the lingering ring from a rifle’s bark. I’ve engaged in conversations about hunting ethics, and I’m an informed debater on the subject. This question, though, left by someone in leadership from my employer on a public platform, suspended in the air. In fact, it rooted in me, and was a catalyst to conceiving GoWild years later. 

This exact comment would resurface over the years, and when it did, it ate me alive.

• Was my grip-and-grin photo with this deer somehow disrespectful?

• Should I have not posted the photo on social media?• Did I do something to make this person think I was posturing?

Admitting the self doubt used to embarrass me. After typing a response to the commenter, deleting it and retyping it another half dozen times, I ultimately settled on a snarky deflection which failed to tackle any of my real issues with the judgment. I failed to defend myself as a hunter.

I simmered on that lack of articulation for years before officially responding by founding an entire company to fight back against this misinformed hate. Without my passion for the subject matter, I am not sure I could continue to take the hits thrown at our company and our people. And I assure you, no matter your startup’s focus, there will always be hits coming.

My founding moment

I hunt in Southeastern Kentucky, where flat acreage is scarce. In lieu of the picturesque rolling fields people think of with Kentucky, our horses graze in small patches of depleted earth at the base of mountain elders. Were my great grandfathers alive, they’d find much of the land largely undisturbed from their childhoods, when coal camps and company stores were commonplace. The occasional dimple in the mountainside makes room for a weathered barn. Roads weave these fields and cling to cliff sides, lest they fall into the ever-parallel creek. 

I still remember hugging these hillsides in my 4X4 in August 2016. It was a life changing day. I left my SUV blocking the drive to a farmhouse no one’s needed access to for generations. Passing through a livestock gate, I left the chain swinging from a rusted nail as I moved through the field. The cattle and crows were the only witness to my existence. 

In the winter months, the sun sleeps late and retires early here, but on this day, the sun peeked under the shade of the heavy summer canopy. Within minutes, sweat crept down my shirt and hat as I moved up to my first trail camera. I still remember pulling and replacing the card before securing it back to the tree in a steel lockbox, protection against thieves and bears. As I began my descent from the hillside, the haunting question returned to my mind.

“Do you feel like a man now?”

And in that moment, I decided to found GoWild. 

Us against the world

Some aspects of this have been surprisingly frustrating. GoWild is the undisputed winner in social media for outdoorsmen and women, yet brands and the industry have been hesitant to adopt our social platform. The largest social media platforms in the world have active anti-hunting policies, yet brands keep digging in instead of diversifying. Over the last year, though, our rapid growth in social commerce has changed how brands are looking at GoWild. We’re getting their attention now.

Outside of our industry adoption, the company still faces daily battles. I’ve spent much of 2022 speaking with institutional investors who pride themselves on innovation and diversity, yet more than half of them walked away from any potential relationship with us because “hunters use guns, and guns are bad” (I’m comically paraphrasing here, but not by much). So much for diversity of thought.

Since our beta launch in 2017, we’ve battled every major platform for inappropriately banning our advertising efforts. Our ads have been shut down purely for the content, and often we find that these issues are the fact we have camouflage in the image, or we’re selling “weapons,” which in truth were just binoculars. Our 2022 PR efforts have largely failed to take root because national news organizations don’t care about our audience. We’ve also been kicked off app stores. 

I don’t share any of that for a pity party. Lord, I don’t need or want your pity. I signed up for this battle. I share it because you need to know that no matter what you decide to build as a founder, you’re going to have your own versions of these battles. If you can’t be the underdog, and go as far as to adopt the antihero mindset, you’re going to lose. 

Antiheroes tap into what society sees as a fault, and use that to create disruption at moments of inflection. The antihero digs into society’s suspicions and exploits it. The antihero knows everyone is doubting him or her, and they keep swinging anyway. This is the role of a founder—always doing something everyone else thinks is impossible, too hard for them, unlikely to happen, or that they’re not the right hero for the job. 

The role of the antihero is also a lonely one. In 2017, another founder who was a few years ahead of me told me, “Be ready, the role of founder is the loneliest job in the world.”

And it is.

Founders carry the burden of these battles in ways other team members don’t have to do, and in ways others probably judge and maybe even think are crazy. They’re the Rocky, the antihero. Just some local kid likely to fail, doing something strange like training by punching racks of beef. 

If you’re not the founder, but working for a startup, you still need to bring your A-game. You’re going to have a first-row seat to the fight of a lifetime. In fact, you’re Mighty Mick, Rocky’s trainer. You’re building the game plan, strategy and coaching up along the way. 

Whether you’re Rocky or Mick, be ready for the opposition’s strikes. They will land time and time again, and you have to be ready. Sometimes you’ll duck in time, and sometimes their punches will hit you square in the jaw. If you aren’t passionate for the product, company and brand values, it’s going to be hard to fight back with the passion necessary to survive. This is more true right now in this economic climate than at any time in the last decade.

Who are you to have an opinion on what it takes?

I’m literally a nobody from small town America. 

I am a run-of-the-mill outdoorsman from Southeastern Kentucky. I grew up playing with dump trucks in piles of coal, shot my first gun at age six, and spent the warm months with a nightly ritual of my mom plucking ticks from my head after a day of playing in the woods. I don’t have an MBA. Hell, I don’t even have a business degree. Never even took a business class. I’m the first to even have a degree on one side of the family, and second on the other.

I’m no one special, and that’s my point.

You don’t need those formalities—those are classic hero archetypes. What I do have is a relentless passion for this company and our mission. My work ethic was handed down to me through coal miners who literally fought for their right for a paycheck so they could feed their families. I don’t back down from a fight nor care if you think I’m ready for it. When I hire for my team, I look for people with passion and work ethic, in addition to talent.

I firmly believe passion and work ethic are going to get you closer to the win than skills alone. When the punches start landing, you have to be ready to punch back, and you have to have quality people by your side to emerge victorious. This requires adopting an antihero mindset, because all along the way, people are going to tell you that you’re not the right fit to tackle this problem. 

Rather than run from it, just embrace it. Forget the rules and be a Han Solo.

Redemption 

In 2017, I hung from a tree, watching over a field as the morning faded. A gunshot echoed in the distance. A few minutes later, another. A third or fourth was lost in the morning mist as I began to ponder if I’m the last soul in the county who hasn’t harvested a deer.

I called a few times. Waited. My impatience was setting in just as I saw an antler peek through the grass. Then another. My heart drummed as I saw a buck coming to me. 

I watched him expire, 60 yards away. I saw his heavy final breaths, and had my moment of reverence by his side, thanking him and assuring him he’d be remembered well. I wiped the blood from my knife, and dragged my hands across my coveralls until dry. I took a few photos, knowing well I had a new home for this story. Our GoWild app had been live for a few months, and I couldn’t wait to post my first Trophy.

So finally, I did respond.

Yeah, I feel like a man.

I’m proud to participate in the ecosystem. I’m proud to provide for my family.

And put simply, I’m proud to hunt.

I’ll pursue this till I die. 

That’s it. No recaps today. I’ll be back to my normally scheduled programming next week. For today, I share something close to my heart. Love y’all and just know I’m grateful for the hundreds who read this newsletter. Thanks for the support.

What I’m reading: “The Voltage Effect” by John A. List

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