We recently sat down with Shields Russell, Principal and Founder of RIG, to talk about the company’s beginnings and his evolving thoughts on working with entrepreneurs.
Why did you start RIG?
"There are essentially three capabilities involved in starting a high growth technology company: solving a real problem for a customer; designing and building something that addresses it; and then taking the product to market.
"I’m not good at the whole equation. I am not a technologist or a product person. I’m interested in taking products to market, products that solve the right problem, by which I mean a problem that really matters to the customer and that they will willingly pay to resolve.
"So when I started this project I wanted to create a specialist firm that was focused on the unique set of challenges that affect early stage, potentially scalable technology companies.
"The challenge was to find a business model that would enable us to develop and retain the expertise necessary to tackle these early stage issues, and in that way, RIG is quite innovative.
"I have never really considered working for someone else as a serious option. I like the freedom to create. That is what is important."
Has your view on working with entrepreneurs has changed since you started RIG?
"I value blind faith and passion less. I appreciate much more the virtues of systematic business building and risk mitigation simply because I know that if more entrepreneurial companies adopted this type of approach, the probability of their success would be much higher.
"A lot of success still has more to do with luck – being in the right place at the right time – than it has with design. Passion is a pre-requisite but it is overrated as a prime driver of success. Lots of people are passionate – that doesn’t mean they are successful.
"Learning and the ability to iterate are far more important. Being an entrepreneur implies taking a risk but the smart entrepreneur is the one who knows how to limit and reduce risk."
