Just do it!

I just ran across this blog post about why some action is better than none. Just looking at what happened today makes me believe that it applies in spades to startups.

The four main points in the post are:
  • Small wins matter. Today we got glowing feedback from one user, just one, but it feels good!
  • Accomplishments come in pieces. A demo from a few weeks ago resulted in a request for proposal. Moved on to the next step.
  • Perfection is unattainable anyway. That's what I told myself when I noticed the user interface on our app needed tweaking in some areas.
  • Actions produce energy and momentum. The end of the day blahs were banished with a flurry of emails, tweets and yes, this blog.
As I've mentioned in an earlier post, it is important to avoid analysis paralysis, especially in a startup. You can read the entire post here - it's short and sweet and may just move you to action. Nike got their mantra right - just do it!

Entrepreneur vs. executive

I'd read this article a while ago and found it both interesting and fun - fun because it is amusing to see a bit of yourself in 'case studies'. The article itself - with the lofty title of 'How Great Entrepreneurs Think'- is about a case study comparing how successful entrepreneurs and successful corporate CEOs would approach the same problem of a hypothetical startup .

The #1 take-away is that entrepreneurs shift their goals as they go along based on what they have to work with, while executives stake out a goal and then figure out what they would need to work with to make it happen. It seems to me that the environment determines the approach - and possibly attracts the kind of person who favors that approach. A startup is, by its nature, fluid and changeable (see my previous post on the adaptive startup) and I'd guess a successful entrepreneur has to roll with it. Conversely, larger companies probably cannot afford to have fluid goals - how do you get 10,000 employees rallying around shifting objectives when it often takes months just to get the objectives for the year communicated and 'aligned'.

The other distinguishing characteristic is putting a premium on acquiring a customer over doing market research and having first-hand knowledge of the industry/market niche vs. relying on focus groups (most entrepreneurs I've met don't use focus groups). That is probably due to the fact that the entrepreneur cannot spread the risk unlike the corporate CEO. Again, it's entirely possible that entrepreneurship draws the kind of person who likes getting her hands dirty and believes in the knowing-by-doing gospel versus what other people tell her.

Enough with my post, go read the source - it's a quick read and you may recognize a bit of yourself there.