Starting up: A game of 3D Chess
The greying investor looked at her for a few seconds and responded with a straight face, "Take a long nap and a cold shower and allow for the feeling to go away." Well, the organisers of the talk were not too happy because the speaker was supposed to get people all excited about - as is so "in" for some years now - "pursuing their passions".
- Oct 18, 2016,
- Updated Oct 18, 2016 2:26 PM IST
The greying investor looked at her for a few seconds and responded with a straight face, "Take a long nap and a cold shower and allow for the feeling to go away." Well, the organisers of the talk were not too happy because the speaker was supposed to get people all excited about - as is so "in" for some years now - "pursuing their passions".
But the investor was not joking. It is actually darned good advice. Let me tell you why.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average comprises 30 of the most valuable companies in the United States. These are the companies that have crafted supremely powerful franchises and business models; each dominates its industry and seems invincible. But scratch the patina of success a bit and you will find the flux within the Dow startling.
Analyse this: Of the 30 companies that formed the Dow in 1956, just a few decades ago, only four are still in the Dow; 26 of them were thrown out. Of these 30, more than half are no longer in business as individual entities. Can you recognise these names that were at the pinnacle of their respective industries then: International Nickel? Johns-Manville? National Distillers? Corn Products?
The point is that so much mayhem was caused in established industries with supposedly high barriers to entry of strong brands, huge infrastructure, large teams of skilled employees…and so on. So, one can imagine the scale of difficulty that exists among nascent businesses in the tech industry where barriers to entry are far lower, technology is changing fast and capital is relatively easier to procure. This perhaps puts the solemn advice of our investor in perspective.
There is an inexorable law of Boolean logic that works for start-ups: Success is an "and" condition. In other words, for a venture to be successful and continue to be so, one has to get multiple things right. One has to have a good idea; and, the idea must come stapled with a compelling and tenable business model; and, secure the right amount of capital; and, assemble a capable and cooperative team of skilled people; and, focus on and motivate the team around the right priorities and initiatives; and, one has to find customers and lots of them; and, one has to institute processes and scale operations; and, one has to ensure capital is adequate. Rinse and repeat because what was good enough yesterday won't cut it today.
The list of these "and" conditions of success is endless. It is made significantly more complex for three reasons.
One, a promising model and opportunity is attacked from all sides, often by firms, new and established, who do not have the constraints and legacy structures but armed with capital and chutzpah.
Two, the technology and process ecosystem around the company also experiences relentless flux. For example, progressive web apps are threatening to make resident apps meaningless for most use cases.
Three, whether a decision is right or wrong along so many vectors of evolution listed above, we get to know only much later.
Researchers and authors of disruption assert that the very things - models, people, processes and values - that make companies successful are the things that make it so hard for them to adapt to fast-changing circumstances.
The path to enduring success, if there is such a thing, is quite narrow. The path to not doing well is quite broad because the Boolean logic of "or" applies there.
Which made Ben Horowitz, the author of one of the best books on entrepreneurship 'Hard Things About Hard Things,' say, "This is not checkers; this is ___f___ (three-dimensional) chess. Technology businesses tend to be extremely complex. The underlying technology moves, the competition moves, the market moves, the people move."
So, what's the point? The point is that each of us thinks we can hit it out of the ballpark…and it is critically important to believe so…whatever be the statistics. The point is one must internalise these odds and be eternally cognizant that one is always swimming up the river.
But there is a sunny side to this grim narrative of endless struggle. Of course, there is the chance, small though it may be, of your film being that one out of ten hits and all the good things that ensue from that success. More importantly, the struggle steels one with multiple growing abilities and the capacities to confront and manage increasingly multiple, multi-faceted challenges. That process of "becoming" is a good thing in itself.
Ah, but a person's reach should exceed her grasp, or what's a heaven for?
The writer is CEO, Sulekha
The greying investor looked at her for a few seconds and responded with a straight face, "Take a long nap and a cold shower and allow for the feeling to go away." Well, the organisers of the talk were not too happy because the speaker was supposed to get people all excited about - as is so "in" for some years now - "pursuing their passions".
But the investor was not joking. It is actually darned good advice. Let me tell you why.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average comprises 30 of the most valuable companies in the United States. These are the companies that have crafted supremely powerful franchises and business models; each dominates its industry and seems invincible. But scratch the patina of success a bit and you will find the flux within the Dow startling.
Analyse this: Of the 30 companies that formed the Dow in 1956, just a few decades ago, only four are still in the Dow; 26 of them were thrown out. Of these 30, more than half are no longer in business as individual entities. Can you recognise these names that were at the pinnacle of their respective industries then: International Nickel? Johns-Manville? National Distillers? Corn Products?
The point is that so much mayhem was caused in established industries with supposedly high barriers to entry of strong brands, huge infrastructure, large teams of skilled employees…and so on. So, one can imagine the scale of difficulty that exists among nascent businesses in the tech industry where barriers to entry are far lower, technology is changing fast and capital is relatively easier to procure. This perhaps puts the solemn advice of our investor in perspective.
There is an inexorable law of Boolean logic that works for start-ups: Success is an "and" condition. In other words, for a venture to be successful and continue to be so, one has to get multiple things right. One has to have a good idea; and, the idea must come stapled with a compelling and tenable business model; and, secure the right amount of capital; and, assemble a capable and cooperative team of skilled people; and, focus on and motivate the team around the right priorities and initiatives; and, one has to find customers and lots of them; and, one has to institute processes and scale operations; and, one has to ensure capital is adequate. Rinse and repeat because what was good enough yesterday won't cut it today.
The list of these "and" conditions of success is endless. It is made significantly more complex for three reasons.
One, a promising model and opportunity is attacked from all sides, often by firms, new and established, who do not have the constraints and legacy structures but armed with capital and chutzpah.
Two, the technology and process ecosystem around the company also experiences relentless flux. For example, progressive web apps are threatening to make resident apps meaningless for most use cases.
Three, whether a decision is right or wrong along so many vectors of evolution listed above, we get to know only much later.
Researchers and authors of disruption assert that the very things - models, people, processes and values - that make companies successful are the things that make it so hard for them to adapt to fast-changing circumstances.
The path to enduring success, if there is such a thing, is quite narrow. The path to not doing well is quite broad because the Boolean logic of "or" applies there.
Which made Ben Horowitz, the author of one of the best books on entrepreneurship 'Hard Things About Hard Things,' say, "This is not checkers; this is ___f___ (three-dimensional) chess. Technology businesses tend to be extremely complex. The underlying technology moves, the competition moves, the market moves, the people move."
So, what's the point? The point is that each of us thinks we can hit it out of the ballpark…and it is critically important to believe so…whatever be the statistics. The point is one must internalise these odds and be eternally cognizant that one is always swimming up the river.
But there is a sunny side to this grim narrative of endless struggle. Of course, there is the chance, small though it may be, of your film being that one out of ten hits and all the good things that ensue from that success. More importantly, the struggle steels one with multiple growing abilities and the capacities to confront and manage increasingly multiple, multi-faceted challenges. That process of "becoming" is a good thing in itself.
Ah, but a person's reach should exceed her grasp, or what's a heaven for?
The writer is CEO, Sulekha