This 40-year-old CEO believes that entrepreneurship is not something to be wished upon, as it is his greatest enemy.

This 40-year-old CEO believes that entrepreneurship is not something to be wished upon, as it is his greatest enemy.
This 40-year-old CEO believes that entrepreneurship is not something to be wished upon, as it is his greatest enemy.

Ben Lamm, a tech executive, has experience in launching start-ups, having successfully launched six of them.

Over the past two decades, Lamm, 40, has sold a series of start-ups he founded, including Hypergiant, Simply Interactive, Team Chaos and Conversable, an AI-driven conversational intelligence company.

Lamm, the CEO of Colossal Biosciences, announced the launch of his sixth company, which aims to resurrect the woolly mammoth using gene-editing techniques. The company raised $60 million in a Series A funding earlier this month.

For years, Lamm has devoted his time to building start-ups. Recently, he observes that his profession has been romanticized in popular media, with Silicon Valley success stories often ignoring the challenges of establishing a business from scratch.

Lamm tells CNBC Make It that he doesn't know if he wishes entrepreneurship on anyone, as it is like his worst enemy. He also states that calling someone an entrepreneur may not necessarily be a compliment.

According to Lamm, starting a business often entails giving up significant time with your loved ones, traveling extensively, sleeping little, and being constantly preoccupied with boardroom battles and shareholder disagreements. This can lead to emotional breakdowns, tears, and utter exhaustion.

Lamm admits that he is more emotional than most people and tends to cry more frequently.

According to Lamm, the key to entrepreneurial success lies in having a strong conviction and passion for your business idea, as well as the ability to handle rejection, including from investors, business partners, and loved ones.

Lamm states, "I am frequently told 'no,' but one must persist."

If you are passionate about creating something new despite the challenges, Lamm has some tips for you.

He has learned to incorporate work breaks into his routine, as he finds it challenging to disconnect from work mode. Due to Covid-19, he has restricted his travel for work to only essential trips and has taken personal vacations to force himself to take breaks.

During his vacation, Lamm restricts himself to checking emails and Slack messages for two hours each morning and spends the rest of the day disconnected.

Lamm gave up alcohol and caffeine to improve his sleep and productivity, and now he prioritizes seven hours of sleep each night, a significant change from his past habits of prioritizing work over sleep.

Lamm states that in order to function at the peak required to make daily decisions, his body specifically needs that, or he is not operating at his best.

This story has been corrected to reflect that Lamm is 40 years old, as of publication.

Don’t miss:

How this 27-year-old lives on $100K a year in Orange County, California
by Jade Scipioni

make-it