image:slideshare.net
culled from:mashable.com
He looked at me with utter disbelief. “You are asking me to change the entire focus of my company”, he said. “That’s friggin’ crazy!”
This young startup founder was one of the many mentees that local incubators and development organizations send to our startup firm on a weekly basis for advice and guidance. What we were proposing for him was a little less extreme than his comment, but was true in the sense that we think his product and business model weren’t meshing together for a successful outcome. Of course our advice was his to do with what he wanted and we can certainly be wrong, but there was a compelling argument behind our logic and he was going too figure out something was wrong either by listening to us or by continuing along a path that wasn’t likely to work.
Your business is going to change. There is rarely ever a new business getting started that came about with one idea and focus that didn’t at least see a change in product features, service offerings, marketing strategy, location, etc. What you think will work today will fail in some way and customer demand, testing, or outright failure will teach you the lesson.
What was critical for this startup CEO and will be critical for you, is to open your mind to all the possibilities, before you have to make the call on the spot or before it’s too late. Yes, it is critical to have a vision and pursue it with a vengeance, but ultimately when things do change in some way as they will, will you have already opened your mind to the possibilities or will you blind yourself to reality.
We like to go through an exercise, where we walk through every component of the product/service, the business, the marketing, the team, and EVERYTHING that is covered by expectations and predictions and question them. What is the other scenario for this assumption? What could go wrong? What can we learn from X, Y, and Z. Going through the possibilities doesn’t mean you have to change your business on the spot, but it does open your mind to the possibilities and usually, it results in you seeing things you never saw before, because you wanted to believe so strongly in your own idea.
Owning your idea is a double-edged sword. On one hand it allows you to have a singular focus, drive, and determination, but it cuts you when it doesn’t allow you to see all the possibilities before it is too late.
Do yourself a favor and pick apart all of your assumptions. Focus on what could go wrong and what could go right. Think about the variables that may impact you. Then ask 3 people to do the same thing. It’s better if it’s people outside of your friends, family, co-workers and industry. Find 3 people that will listen and be willing to give you the honest feedback you need. Often this can be a brutal thing, because you may not like what you hear, but you can take what you hear and think of all the possibilities surrounding the negatives they brought up. Also be sure to hear the positive ideas and figure out a way to expand upon them.
Ultimately, listening, thinking, and analyzing analytically can lead you to where you want to be. Yes, you may need to change your “whole friggin’ model”, but you may just need to make a few things better. Don’t lose the opportunity for reflection, because you couldn’t see what was right in front of you and march forward to failure instead.
