Not literally of course, but startups need to ‘run with scissors’, be reckless, take risks, and get results quickly at the get go. It’s at this stage when the risk is low, reward high, and mistakes are more readily overcome.
A startup shouldn’t be worrying about getting all the details right or being perfect because at that point there are too many unknowns: the market, the needs, and even the solution.
How can they focus on perfection when they’re not sure of what they need to perfect?
Once they’re out there, working with real customers in the actual market, they’ll quickly understand what’s important, what works and what doesn’t, and they’ll be able to adjust and adapt accordingly.
In short, when a startup is just getting started, embrace the scrappiness, hustle, and get shit done.
The difficult part comes in keeping this mentality as they grow.
Now they’re more reluctant to take risks because they’ve established themselves and built a reputation that they don’t want to damage. So instead of innovating and running with scissors they’re more careful and try to be perfect.
More often than not, this approach will lead to some hot new startup surpassing them, one that isn’t concerned with taking risks and making mistakes.
The lesson – keep running with scissors.
Image by jdhancock
