Perseverance, Potlucks, and Potholes: Surviving Change as a Midwesterner

I have a confession to make: I’m not a true Midwesterner. I’ve lived in Michigan since summer 2019, though it feels longer because I went to Michigan football watch parties at 11am and drank a lot of Two Hearted before moving here. I’ve actually adopted a heck of a lot of Midwestern tendencies in the last six years: I actually have said “excuse me can I just sneak past you?” when grocery shopping in Meijer, I drive a Ford, and I’m team Lafayette Coney Island. 

My story of moving to Michigan is one that is actually a bit difficult for me to tell because of how hard it was. With that move, literally everything in my life changed. Now, I was fortunate to not experience some crisis, but everything that represented my identity changed at once. I quit my job, I got married, I relocated 500 miles and five states away, I left all my friends and my favorite dive bar (shout out to Lymans), I moved into a tiny studio apartment located above my in-laws garage, I started a new job, and my new husband started grad school full-time. That was a very dark winter, and not just because the sun sets so freaking early in Michigan in February. Jokes aside, I experienced so much personal and professional change all at once that I really struggled. It was a complete shock to my mental health and wellbeing. Everything that made up my own identity had radically changed, and it felt like it happened overnight. 

It took a while, but after months of self-reflection, finding a good therapist, and intentionally finding ways to engage with the local Ann Arbor community to make it feel more like home and find ‘my people’ in the Midwest, the shock from so much change started to subside. I started to like my new home, my new job, and my new Midwest city. 

Another Story of Change: Plymouth becoming Straylight:

I share this very personal perspective on change because change itself is often an emotional undertaking, even when it’s a professional or organizational change taking place. In addition to that personal change story, I have also just experienced professional and organizational change: on Tuesday of this week, the investment firm I’ve been part of for the last 3.5 years went through a rebrand. Plymouth Growth - one of the oldest venture firms in Michigan, founded over twenty years ago by Ian Bund - became Straylight Capital.

This was a very intentional organizational change, one that has been a long time coming and one that allows our firm to tell a story around who we are and why in physics, stray light is the term for light entering an optical system that isn’t supported by the intended design. Our firm, Straylight, exists to back founders and teams that aren’t supported by the intended design, i.e., the traditional systems of coastal venture capital and private equity. (Shameless plug: you can read more about our own change story and why we did it in our Rebrandifesto here.) Even though this rebrand was professional, it still felt very personal and quite emotional (in a very good way), and I know for a fact that our team’s perseverance played a big role in sustaining us through this change, and coming out of the rebrand not only having survived, but feeling excited and with a renewed sense of purpose.

Perspectives of Change from a Midwestern Attitude:

Change happens all the time. There’s the adage “the only certain thing in life is change”, and that’s so true. That and maybe the Lions breaking Lions fans’ hearts every football season. 

With change happening so often then, why is change so hard? 

Could the way we see the world in the Midwest - with our grit, our resilience, and our ability to withstand negative temperatures - make us better at navigating change? I recently recounted to my colleagues at Straylight how I was proud of myself for negotiating with the sales guy at the local Ford dealer when I bought my mom a car earlier this year, and how it took about two hours but I was not going to leave without that $1,000 discount I was asking for. “Patient perseverance,” my boss called it. 

Are Midwesterners better at perseverance than other states, and what does that say about our collective ability as a startup ecosystem to not just survive, but thrive?

Startups And the Change Curve

I recently spent a few days in another midwestern city with one of our portfolio companies for a board meeting and dinner. We spent a lot of time talking about the company’s growth journey, how far they have come, and what happens next as we prepare for a liquidity event. 

It’s super interesting to think about the popular Technology Adoption Life Cycle shared in the famous startup book Crossing the Chasm when juxtaposed against the Change Curve in psychology and business. Startups, and the technologies or business ideas they bring to market, are constantly going through change. And even the market around the business is constantly undergoing change as adoption increases (or not) as the offering achieves product-market fit. 

Think of the various stages of a startup organization as the product goes from early market to being adopted by the mainstream market: a lot will change within the startup from professionalization of systems and processes, to expanding the team to fulfill demand, to oftentimes needing to bring in outside investors and additional resources to reach scale. 

I believe that startups go through their own mini change curves with every step of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle stage. When a startup goes from $0 to $1 million in revenue, when it goes from $1 or $3 million to say $10 million plus, and then again when it doubles in size from $10 to $20 million, each time organizational morale and confidence will go through the stages of shock or surprise, denial or disbelief, frustration, depression or burnout, then moral rises again with initial increased engagement, teams go through inherent decision making in order to learn how to adapt to and work in the new org, and then finally integration post change is achieved and morale returns to an all time high, even stronger than it was before the change. Now that is obviously an ideal scenario, and sometimes things break or companies are sold (or go out of business all together) at various stages along the change curve. 

But that is our goal as growth stage investors: how do we guide companies along both the technology adoption lifecycle and the change curve, helping to support both the business and the emotional impacts of major change as a company grows and scales? 

My Two Cents: Advice for Founders When Experiencing Change:

Like I experienced when I moved to Michigan and it felt like everything was changing at once, founders and CEOs also experience not only a high volume of change but also drastic and dramatic change. As investors, we coach our management teams on these changes from a metrics-first perspective (how to prepare for a liquidity event) and throughout our hold period we help provide perspective and best practices around organizational change. But we don’t typically address the personal and emotional side of change that impacts founders and their teams. This has left me wondering, what advice would I give to founders and startups CEOs for how to best persevere and manage through change? 

While I’m certainly no expert, I still hope that my own experiences have taught me a thing or two that could provide helpful viewpoints on how to manage through change. In addition to my traumatic move to Michigan, I also made a complete career pivot from marketing to finance, and just led the aforementioned rebrand for my firm. 

So here’s my two cents of advice for surviving change:

1. Have patience. Change doesn’t usually happen overnight. It takes time, focus, and dedication. It takes hard work. The best changes aren’t easy, but they are worth it. If you have the patience to persevere, you will be better for it. 

2. Don’t forget that it’s temporary.  There are often struggles and hardships that come with change: late nights and long hours, personal or professional discomfort, increased risk. But all of the hard parts of change are temporary while you are going through it. Reminding yourself of that doesn’t make those hard moments or that exhaustion any less real, but it can show you that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and I believe this allows you to be more resilient as you work through the change.

3. You can choose to be happy. I don’t always personally abide by this, but when I do, I see a difference. Things around you can be really shitty or you can almost be at your breaking point with exhaustion and burn out, but if you are able to change your mindset even the slightest to choose to be happy - or at least choose to have grit and make it through - this mindset choice will go a long way in shaping your overall attitude and outlook. 

4. Acknowledge the emotional impacts of the change, and know that your emotions are valid – CEOs are inherently changemakers, creating something from nothing. Because of this they are often really good at -  or at least quite comfortable with -  instituting change and leading through change. However, where they often struggle is with acknowledging and supporting the emotional aspects of change for the rest of their team. Who better to ask about change management than a business consultant – so I asked for my husband's input on the matter. In his experience, business leaders often either struggle with change management or the change management effort fails because the leaders overemphasize the rational and logical reasons for change, but fail to manage the emotional implications, and how that impacts teams and organizational culture. 

5. Surviving the change builds character. A good friend recently left her role and got a new one. It was a journey and she struggled to find the right next job. But she did, and it’s way better than the old job. We were chatting about the process and whirlwind she went through and her perspective on it was perfect: what she went through builds character. In the moments of change, it can be difficult to see this, but at the end of the process, you will have emerged stronger for the obstacles you’ve overcome.

A Professional’s Advice to Startups on The Art of Change:

I had the privilege of speaking with Jeff Degraff, author and Professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, about managing through change and what advice he has for founders and CEOs. Jeff has published several books on change and innovation, including one very aptly titled “The Art of Change: Transforming Paradoxes into Breakthroughs.” Jeff is a builder himself and has advised numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Apple, Google, and GE. He’s also worked for and advised Domino’s Pizza (founded in Ypsilanti, MI!). I thought he would be the perfect person to give his perspective on what advice he offers  to companies for how to manage change. 

Jeff and I ended up discussing the extraordinary change that occurs when a company is acquired, and I asked point blank, is there anything that can be done to make facing change as a founder easier. He suggested two things: 

1. Make sure you have someone in your corner who you trust and who’s “been there and done that” before.

2. You have to have another vision. 

Whether it’s your investor, an independent board member or advisor, another CEO in your space or your town who’s climbed the mountain before you, whoever you/CEO decides to be “your guy” (or your gal), have that person in your corner and talk to them frequently throughout the period of change. “By having somebody who is truly understanding you or listening to you, an ambassador or an emissary, the more comfortable you are,” Jeff shared. 

Jeff’s second point is less obvious: “You have to have another vision. You know, ‘What comes after this?’.” Whether you/CEO are selling your business, or raising capital, or whatever the change is that you are going through, you have to have another vision. Many CEOs don’t. But the hard truth is that one day you’re not going to be running your business anymore (even if that just means that you one day retire). 

There will come a day where you are doing something different, and having a vision for what that is will help you work through the change, knowing that something good is right over on the other side. 

Whatever that is: building another company, serving as a board advisor, writing a book, or sitting on the beach drinking pina coladas.

Change happens. The best thing any of us can do is be ready for it. 

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Michelle Erikson is Vice President at Straylight Capital (formerly known as Plymouth Growth). Her role involves assessing the health and scalability of potential investments, and supporting the growth of portfolio companies. Prior to Straylight, she led marketing for the University of Michigan’s Athletics Department and worked for a venture-backed sports accelerator. While not a Midwesterner by birth, she has adopted us lovingly as her home: she loves Euchre, the Upper Peninsula, and driving by corn fields on her commute.

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