Category: entrepreneurship

I was just talking to a startup about their project. They wanted to supply cafes with a new high tech food service. The idea was good and interesting and they we’re thinking big – too big. In their mind the path to success was cutting a deal with a large chain who could roll out their innovation at scale. Big ambitions are great, but the problem with leveraging the scale of another organisation is this:

We need too many people to say ‘yes’ before we can make progress.

Here’s a better idea, find a way to get to market where you need a maximum of 1 person to say yes. If we do this, we can get out of fantasy land and prove a real market proposition.

I then suggested they find 1 cafe, with 1 owner, who can give them an answer to test the concept. If they say no, at least you can ask why and learn something. When dealing with  big companies we also need to remember the people often say ‘Yes’, to get us off their plate. To revert us to someone else who can say ‘No’. And you guessed it, this process can drag on for months and meetings until you get to the final and real ‘No’. All the while you’re believing you’re making progress, but it’s down a long lead dead end.

The probability of any startup succeeding can be divided by the number of people we need to say ‘yes’ to what we want to do. 

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When starting something new it is useful to invent some boundaries. Inventing boundaries around tiny spaces to create testable markets give us a better chance to find out commercial truths. Boundaries create a commercial lab of sorts within which we can test, learn and validate. We need smaller boundaries than we originally imagine. I use these:

Geography: What’s the smallest possible geography we can serve? A single street, a single gym, a single office. We need to prove the problem is worth solving in a very defined area.

Time: When do we solve it? What hour of the day or week does it get solved. We can cover the remaining hours in the day, or days in the week later.

Customer: A group of people so small there isn’t a current descriptor for them. They should certainly be smaller than a demographic or interest based group. Here’s the group I started to serve with Sneaky Surf: Surfers in Victoria, who are in relationships, who are over the age of 30 who live more than 1 hour from the beach. Sounds weird, but I can serve their needs better and expand from there. This group should also include people you don’t know – real customers from the real world.

Product: What is the single product offer that brings the above three things together. A single solution. There are usually many available, but we must choose the most pressing and the easiest to solve to make the audiences life better.

If we follow this approach our startup has a better chance of getting out of the starting phase.

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Tonight, I’m doing some work with the TV on in the back ground. The movie Terminator 3 – the rise of the machines is on. A classic in the series of films which promulgates a human war against our own AI’s. I think it’s a real classic. There is a great line in the film with John Conner when he’s in the van with Kate Brewster explaining the impending apocalypse.

It’s just that, the life you know. All this stuff you take for granted…. it’s not gonna last.

This is true, for all of us, right now. It’s true if AI becomes the threat many smart people say it is, and it is true if such a judgment day never happens.

Nothing is going to last. The future is unknowable, and our participation in it will eventually expire. We shouldn’t take anything for granted. The joy we get in the early formative days in a startup. The wonder of spending time with people we love. The pleasure of modern day living for those lucky enough to enjoy it.

All this stuff and everything that makes life good, it is to be enjoyed like there is no tomorrow.

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PS – this is why I often choose surfing today, vs money next week. Money is a tomorrow proposition. I always take my own advice and drink my own champagne.