pivoting: the delight of a great team in a great space
I’m been enthusiastically hammering my head against the wall of local media and small business revenue models for over a dozen years. About a year ago, I strapped on my early stage start-up skates and wobbled my way back onto the ice.
the napkin phase
A lot has changed in the 6-7 years since I was an early stage entrepreneur. While running a 150-person local media tech business keeps you contemporary with industry knowledge, rolodex and perspective, you forget the scrappy exhilaration and anxiety of a from-scratch business formed around a shining new idea. It also gives you a near carnal attachment to a clean cap table;)
learning to lean
I’ve read with a mixture of enthusiasm and marginal skepticism the lean start-up school of thought. The “agile + listen to your market + pivot quickly” logic is high quality stuff for any start-up to seriously digest.
creating room to pivot
One tenant of the movement I’m currently living full throttle is the “pivot moment“. I find the notions and structures contained in Eric Ries’ excellent writings to be spot on. As you absorb early customer learning and market movements, more often than not, you realize that your original napkin picture carried some flawed assumptions. Leveraging and pivoting “on top of the learnings” is an incredibly healthy process.
This comes back to a point I picked (back) up on this weekend from Chris Dixon, commenting via RWW’s Start-up Advice Column. Chris comments in his November blog post, that start-ups make the mistake of centering their energy on proving the brilliance of their business idea.
To me, the two most critical decisions in a new start-up are #1, your core team, and #2, the space you choose to tackle. Choosing both wisely increases your odds of success exponentially! Pivoting within a great market space is naturally much more exhilarating than pivoting inside a narrow and cluttered one.
pivoting with delight
Agility is a very special frame of mind; In my experience, it’s way more rare than people think. There’s a lot of faux agility in start-ups that I think of as a love for the adrenaline of chaos. To me, the greatest start-up teams blend an infectious curiosity, deep problem solving chops, and a sincere delight in the learning from customers, competition & market movements.
More often than not, start-ups thrive on the adrenaline but lack the problem solving or the thirst for driving business impact. One of the leading symptoyms of this condition is an overt infatuated with bright shiny objects and industry buzz. Falling into the trap of measuring your movements by the compass of Techcrunch is an all too common problem.
being in “your know” not “the know”
One of the things I’ve learned, which I have to force myself to continually re-visit is the difference between being in the know – aware of general industry trends and activities, versus being in your know – being deeply connected to the information that impacts your company’s value creation.
Think about the time you spend on extraneous information, constantly challenge yourself to cut it down, and increase your participatory learning in information that impacts your business. Know your critical assumptions and test their validity every chance you get.
balance and posture
Navigating the pivotal progress of an early stage start-up presents risks and challenges that will either damage you or build you up! Surrounding yourself with the right team gives you the posture and strength to maneuver confidently. Keeping a clear head full of the right context will enable you to pivot with confidence to an improved vision.
