Entrepreneurism: Navigating a Brutal Sport

Drew Yancey is the President and CEO of Yancey’s Food Service in Loveland, Colorado and a PhD student at the University of Birmingham.

We spoke recently about his work, and his passion for the development of great entrepreneurs in our region.

Tell us about your current work life. What is your work, and why is it important to you?

For my “day job,” I wear two hats. I lead a produce merchandising and distribution business based in Loveland, which is a spinoff from a family foodservice business that we sold a couple of years ago. Additionally, I do organizational effectiveness consulting with a firm called Peak Solutions, which is run by a good friend of mine named Richard Fagerlin. My family business was one of Peak Solution’s first clients years ago, so in some ways I have come full circle! The fact that I consult other organizations while leading my own keeps my perspective and my counsel grounded in the practical realities of leadership. The tools and resources I implement with my clients are the very same tools and resources I have utilized and developed with my own teams.  

You are passionate about the moral formation and development of entrepreneurs and leaders. Tell us how you got into that space and how you stay involved with the entrepreneur community today.

Fundamentally, I am passionate about it because I have personally experienced how difficult it can be to stay focused on the right things in the world of entrepreneurship! The question I have come to dwell on is, “How can Christian entrepreneurs be successfully engaged in modern entrepreneurialism, which values the material and the immediate, and also succeed in moral formation, which is a long and slow process?”

Entrepreneurship is a very powerful tool for social and economic progress, but it often enacts a heavy toll on its participants. The high-failure rate among start-ups is well known; what is less talked about is the personal struggles that entrepreneurs can face at deep levels, whether or not their companies ultimately succeed. I want to come alongside other entrepreneurs and support them in this journey, and help others do the same.

How has your faith informed your career journey? How do you live out your faith at work?

I think that depends on how we define the concept of “faith.” I tend to prefer the term “trust” because I think it captures something that is fundamental to human experience — we are by nature finite beings, which means that trust is mandatory and not an option. The question becomes, then, in what am I placing my trust? The life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth offer a very compelling story about where we come from and in whom we can trust.

In my own organizations and in my consulting, I hardly ever encounter a “business problem” that isn’t entangled at some dimension with human relational challenges. This isn’t surprising given that any organization — no matter its industry, size, product or service — is essentially an interdependent group of human beings that depend on trust and healthy conflict to succeed. Seen through this lens, organizations provide abundant opportunity for followers of Jesus to make meaningful and long-term impact in the lives of those they work for, with, and alongside!

What are unique opportunities that entrepreneurs have to live out their values at work? Do you have a local example of someone who does that well? 

Entrepreneurship is an extremely brutal sport and I think to some extent we have glossed over that reality in our culture. Let’s not forget that the concept of entrepreneurship has its origins in what Schumpeter called “creative destruction.” What this means is that opportunities truly abound everywhere for people engaged in the world of entrepreneurship to serve those around them. I would suggest we have something of a crisis of authenticity in entrepreneurial culture right now — the extreme pressure to obtain traction, scale, and funding is not necessarily a conducive environment for founders and organizations to be authentic about their struggles and shortcomings. Long term, I think this can be a detriment to social and human well-being if we are not pushing back against the norm.

I have been very blessed in my own life to be able to directly observe value-driven entrepreneurship by close mentors, not the least of which is my dad, who I worked for and with for a decade in our family business. One of the common denominators I have observed in entrepreneurs who have succeeded over the long-term is a focus on achieving financial and operational benchmarks in a way that contributes to the well-being of an organization’s many stakeholders.