Five Sure
Shortcuts for Startups
Of course you have limited amounts of time, capital,
people and patience. That's called being an entrepreneur. Use these rules to
help you get the most out of the resources you have available.
Executive director, Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation
and Tech Entrepreneurship, Illinois Institute of Technology
I'm not much of a fan of manufactured mission
statements. Most of the pious platitudes and posters you see on office walls
make me puke. These days you can probably buy a pro forma (and nicely
laminated) mission statement for your business at Staples and a
fill-in-the-blanks business plan as well. The reality is that you can't ape
your way to success. Ya gotta make your own way and tell your own story.
And, in an age of lousy listeners and mixed
meanings, getting your message through to your team --clearly and
consistently-- is even more critical. Never make the mistake of
thinking that once is enough. It pays to be obsessive about company
communication because that's the only way to be sure that the story sticks and
that everyone in the boat is on the program as well. Say it once and the
message is wasted; say it half a dozen times and they'll start listen;
say it all the time and they'll take you seriously. Repetition is the most
convincing argument.
You can't accept someone's smile and a nod and
think that you got the job done. Never confuse good manners with agreement and
don't take anyone's word for things that aren't backed up by their actions.
Especially when you're trying to be a change agent, it's important to take
these things very personally. Apologies without changes in behavior are really
just insults.
This kind of crucial communication is
especially essential when you're just starting out as the head of a new
business. Everyone in the joint will be looking closely for signs and signals--keys
and clues-- trying to guess what's in your head and to figure out where and how
things are going. As if you know. They're looking to you for
leadership and guidance, to show them the vision, the path and how you'll all
get there. You're on stage all day, every day, and your words and
actions are contagious.
But even in a small shop, communication is a
challenge --way harder than you think. And the stakes couldn't be higher,
especially at the start, when building the right culture is as important as
building the rest of the business. As they say at NASA: "Off by an inch at
launch; miss the moon by a mile." Cultures are fragile in the
formative stages and can curdle and go south in a very short time if they're
not curated, cared for, and mercilessly maintained--and enforced. Businesses
very quickly become the behaviors they tolerate and, once that slippery slide
starts, reversing those behaviors is almost impossible. This is not something
that you can get right later. You get it right from the start, or you can
forget about it.
But you can't do this all by yourself or try
to get face-to-face with everyone. Instead, you need a few shortcuts and step
savers. The best leaders are great storytellers, but they are even better
simplifiers. They're architects of aphorisms and crafters of clichés. They've
learned that the most powerful and memorable pronouncements are often the
shortest. If you can't say it in a sentence or two at most, it's either not
worth saying or you don't understand the subject well enough to share it and
sell it to your team, your clients, and your customers.
I've had thousands of employees in more than a
dozen businesses and I can guarantee you that, even 10 or 20 years
later, most of them can still finish my sentences when I'm spouting
the old company lines. They aren't Yogi-isms quite yet, but they're on their
way and they make a lot more sense. Every business needs its own (authentic)
versions of these pithy phrases to act as ready reminders, great guardrails,
and guides to the gospel.
I've got too many to share them all here, but
I thought I'd give you a couple that have served me well for decades and are no
less relevant or valuable today. Feel free to make them your own or adapt them
to help you tell your own story.
(1) YOUR
DOG DOESN'T NEED EMAIL
Developers and especially
engineers are shameless incrementalists. No feature or function is too
excessive or unnecessary to add to the next release. They'll load a feature
whether we need it or want it or not. This is how we get products like Word or
Excel, where 99% of the users have no clue how to use 99% of the embedded and
layered functions, but we all suffer from the inflated size of the installs and
the painful delays when we launch these monster programs. These guys are
constantly inventing cures for no known diseases. They don't understand that
new users just wanna get started and not spend hours learning the ropes. Use
this phrase as shorthand to head off feature creep and product bloat: very
useful as well in swiftly stigmatizing utterly useless apps.
(2) THERE'S
NEVER ONLY ONE COCKROACH
Problems come in
packs--and three is not always a charm. Even at the best-run businesses, you
can fall into the trap of quick fixes that address only the most obvious
symptoms rather than the root causes. Typically, because everyone's in a hurry,
the next step is a rush to declare victory and a futile attempt to move
on. Makeshift solutions, though, distract you from the real
underlying problems, which rarely go away of their own volition. More often
they fester and get worse.
In an age of growing
interdependence, global connectivity, increasing complexity and the constant
threat of unintended and unforeseen consequences, slowing down and taking a
deeper look at things just makes sense. Einstein once said that he wasn't so
smart, he just stayed with problems longer. Perseverance pays off. And it's
also important to understand that "problems" are often just opportunities dressed
up in overalls instead of Allbirds.
(3) YOU
NEVER KNOW WHO'S GONNA BRING YOU YOUR FUTURE
One of the reasons that
many good entrepreneurs succeed is because they are narrowly and aggressively
focused on the main opportunities they see directly in front of them. They
pride themselves on knowing when to say "No" which--in the startup
world-- is especially difficult because you're constantly confronted by hard
choices, new and inviting distractions, and multiple tantalizing offers. But
shutting yourself off like this can also be dangerous because, while lots of
very bright entrepreneurs think that they're on top of what's going on in their
fields and in the world in general, they're badly mistaken.
First, because things are
just moving too fast for anyone to keep up with everything, and second, because
the things that are likely to supercharge or strangle your startup aren't the things in front of you, or
being pursued by your closest competitors. They're the unexpected things-- the
outside entrants, the new market makers, the leap-frogging technologies--that
are likely to be the most disruptive and/or devastating.
Keeping an ear to the
ground and a watchful eye out as well is smart, but as often as not, the real
business breakthroughs will be surprisingly random: a kid who
pitches you a new idea in an elevator, a magazine article that strikes a chord,
advances in techniques so far from your field that you only see them on 60
Minutes, and so on.
And, believe me, if your
head's 100% buried day-to-day in your business, these opportunities and
inspirations will blow right by you. Look, listen and learn.
(4) IT
DOESN'T PAY TO PUT LIPSTICK ON A PIG
When
you're just starting out, short of cash, and trying to cover all the bases at
the same time, there's a terrible tendency to spread yourself a mile wide and
an inch deep. Too little time and too many demands and mouths to feed. So, you
start thinking that doing something (anything) or even just doing a little bit
is better than sitting still and doing nothing. If you can't do something
right, at least do it quickly and don't look back. Because aren't startups all
about speed?
This is
a formula for failure and when you eventually do look back, you'll see a track
record littered with debits, leftovers and losers because you and your team
haven't learned the most basic rule of business: you should never try to do
something cheaply that you shouldn't do at all. The best businesses do a few
things really well and build from there. They don't do anything halfway or
half-assed because these attempts never get you anywhere you want to go. Doing
things to keep busy (or on the cheap) isn't the same as doing business and
getting the right things done.
No
matter how much steak sauce you put on a hot dog, it's still a wiener.
(5) DON'T
MISTAKE A CLEAR VIEW FOR A SHORT DISTANCE
Everything in Startup
Land takes longer and costs more than expected. The only things that are
consistently underestimated are, of course, sales, revenues and profits. This
is all about the necessary passage of time, which is that nasty little thing
that keeps everything from happening all at once. You can only push on a rope
so far and honestly it doesn't matter how passionate you are, how hard you're
willing to work, how well-funded you may be, or whether you've got the very
best idea since the invention of sliced bread. The boat is going to take a
while to sail (and sell) and managing the realistic expectations of your team
is just as important as delivering the straight scoop to your customers and
prospects. It may, in fact, be even more important.
A little bit of early
caution and some serious patience will pay serious dividends down the road. I
realize that entrepreneurs rarely come with an on/off switch and that they're
all true believers, but you must realize that convincing yourself is easy. I
call this the "that hooker really liked me" syndrome. Selling-- especially
something new and different-- is time-consuming and hard. Even entrepreneurs so
good that they could sell shoes to a snake learn eventually that nothing good
happens overnight.
In the trenches of the
real world, success is more a matter of diligent preparation, solid, consistent
execution, and pathological perseverance than one of hope and vision. No one
likes sitting on the phone making 50 calls a day, but that may be what's
required to build a business. A step at a time, one foot in front of the other,
and always looking for the next hill to climb. Because nothing really matters
until someone sells something to somebody.