2020 saw a rise in a loophole in the public market, which seemed to take the EV world by storm: the SPAC, or Special Purpose Acquisition Corporation. The concept is that a shell corporation large enough to be publicly traded on Wall Street would buy a brick and mortar company, thereby absorbing it into it’s already-tradeable status without all that hassle and time of playing by the rules. EV companies already playing fast and loose with the regulations were drawn to this get rich quick scheme like moths to the flame, and like Icarus have risen and fallen just as quickly. Lucid, Lightning, Proterra, Lordstown: all titles of the past. As of this writing, Lion is right behind and will likely follow suit. What went wrong?

In short, it’s just as volatile as any other get rich quick scheme. With investors breathing down their necks, executives take larger and larger risks to make a quick return on these high interest deals, which had little chance of success in the first place. Bringing in a high-powered “expert” C-level to increase manufacturing without vetting their c_haracter_ will obviously be a gamble. If that person turns out to be so motivating that all of your talent becomes inspired to seek other employment, how are you ever going to be able to keep the doors open?

Impressing the investors at all costs is perhaps the biggest overt pitfall to success. “Quick, clean up the shop! We have investors coming!” This is the least welcome refrain for those working on the line, as it is the classic Potemkin Village, a proven bad idea for over 200 years. High dollar or technical tooling will sit in the corner gathering dust until the deep pockets roll by, when it’s all lights and lasers, gleaming to sparkle the eyes in an ill-conceived effort to turn out wallets. Can anyone keep such a façade up long enough to pay off the loan sharks and turn a profit? I seriously doubt it.

The quest for speed, like foolish seedling disease, will always result in falling over. Tortoise and hare, anyone? “We know we can achieve 5000% growth if we just work hard enough!” Oh really? We aren’t yeast. Come now, more than 20% growth for tangible industries isn’t going to be scalable- When physical goods have to be manufactured, shipped, inventoried, quality checked(hopefully), and installed, getting enough people on board and paid will be a tough one to crack. People? Oh, yeah, it’s not the stuff, it’s the people…

Good help is hard to find, the saying goes. As someone who’s looked time and again for talented folks, I can indeed confirm the truth in this statement. Attracting that talent requires, at it’s core, one thing: safety. High on the list these days is safety from overwork, from harassment, from abuse in all the various forms we see in the workplace. Ever been guilted into overtime? Nobody goes home until the job is done, this project will save the company! Bollocks.

Financial safety seems a little obvious from the standpoint of anyone who takes home a paycheck, but how many employers will bend over backwards to find some loophole to underpay you? “But we have great benefits! You can see airplanes! We offer stock options! We have a mud bath! Let’s talk about your flair…” Good grief, Charlie Brown, let’s get paid with real money that will buy food and shelter please. And don’t get me started on wage theft- the poor engineers I’ve talked to with no overtime pay at all, just straight exempt salary, yet somehow they aren’t getting manager or C-level pay. The largest unprosecuted white collar crime in the world.

In all, it seems like getting a startup off the ground without already having a billion to burn should have the following formula- find nice people, treat them well, grow slow but intentionally, and make ample preparations for things to break. The fact that so few companies follow such a formula is perhaps a reason that so many startups fail to…start. These rules are hard, but not insurmountable. They do take time, and most founders find that penniless is a rough situation to be in for any length of time. However, as the great Lewis Carroll once said, “It is always best to begin at the beginning.”