Founder motivation tends to come in one of two flavors:

1. The mission or positive impact their startup could bring

2. The tangible success (financial or otherwise) their startup could bring

When it comes to pivots, knowing your motivation type will affect your approach.

Missionaries need to look INSIDE.

• What do you care about?

• What values matter most to you?

• How do you want to the world to be different?

• Whose lives do you want to improve?

Mercenaries need to look OUTSIDE.

• What's changing about the world?

• What's an overlooked opportunity you could take on?

• What's a tedious task or as Paul Graham calls a "schlep" people hate dealing with?

The media loves to do stories on the passionate founder who believed against all odds in their idea. VC's love to talk about how they back visionary founders, not spreadsheet jockeys.

So a lot of Mercenaries cloak themselves in the language of Missionaries. Sequoia's site says they back "the creative spirits" and "the true believers".

A Mercenary looks at the world—with a series of statistics that tell a story of a market opening. Assaf Wand, the co-founder and CEO of Hippo said in an NFX interview that he got obsessed with decline in home insurance agents.

But when Hippo went public, the CEO letter says they started Hippo because they believed "that homeowners deserve a better home insurance experience". That's Missionary-speak and much warmer-sounding than "not enough people coming in and a lot of people leaving".

So what do true Missionaries look like? You have to know them personally and see how they behave over time. My friend Derek Flanzraich, founder of Ness, a credit card designed to support a healthier life, is one.

His passion for health and wellness is undeniable:

• he's an investor or advisor in a dozen health co's

• he's on the board of a nonprofit empowering youth through sports

• he spent 8 years building Greatist, one of the most trusted & trafficked sites for health info.

When working on Greatist, he once told me that he would be building health companies for the rest of his life.

"If Greatist doesn't work out, I'll just start another health co."

And well, Greatist DID work out (acquired by Healthline in 2019), but he was true to his word.

So which one is better? There's of course no right answer. The truth is, you have to know yourself and what's going to drive you day in and day out.

• If you get excited seeing numbers go up and to the right, no matter the topic, you might be a Mercenary.

• If you'd be ok with giving up the easy road in order realize your dream and do it your way, you might be a Missionary.

When pivoting your company, don't take advice from Mercenaries if you're a Missionary, or vice versa.

Trust your instincts. It's what got you the success you've had so far, and it's what you should rely on for the difficult road ahead.