6 Ways Startups Sabotage Themselves and 3 Ways They Can Fix It
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
Use strategic focus to build a record of early stage success.
I think people who create organizations from scratch are brilliant, courageous and resourceful, to say the least. They also tend to be optimistic and adventurous, which makes them attractive people to be around, for sure; but it also leaves them vulnerable to the next new and wonderful thing, i.e., to distraction. I was trying to come up with an apt analogy for this tendency to use in a blog when it suddenly hit me.
Squirrels.
That’s right, squirrels. In the Disney Pixar animated film Up, dogs are outfitted with special collars that translate their barks and other doggy sounds into English. In several scenes, the dogs are chatting along intelligently when all of a sudden one of them gets a whiff of a squirrel and shouts “squirrel,” stopping the dogs dead in their tracks and freezing their attentions on the squirrel until it scampers away.
I see these scenes as a metaphor for what happens when the founders of young companies let their natural energy and enthusiasm take their eyes off the ball and become distracted by any number of “squirrels” that come into view. These may include:
launching a new product because they can, not because it fits with their core brand
plunging into a new channel without thinking through how they’ll manage it
acting on advice from a person they respect without vetting it with their team or with their target consumer
broadening their market too quickly (i.e., if mom likes it, dad probably will too!)
hiring lots of shiny specialists before they’re needed — then having to fire them when revenue doesn’t come in as expected
mistaking speed for strategy and getting out ahead of staff and customers.
If any of these sounds even vaguely familiar to you, you can avoid them in the future if you follow three simple steps in this order:
Create or regain your strategic focus by reacquainting yourself with your customer, your marketplace, and yourself. Plaster the key points from these assessments on the wall in your office if you have to!
Support your strategic focus by getting your team into a weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual rhythm of goal setting and evaluation.
Hire or partner with someone who will keep you accountable to your strategy and mission. This could be your first key executive hire, a coach, or an investor, for example. Giving your team permission to call you out when they see you get distracted can also work (although it takes a special culture to support this level of safety for employees).
None of these steps offer quick fixes; but they’re not hard to implement, either. They are part of an ongoing process of imposing discipline on your gut instinct to go after those squirrels rather than remain true to your team, customers, and your passion.
Let me know what you’re doing to maintain a simple and clear focus on your mission!
Sincerely,
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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!