I was recently talking to a highly driven entrepreneur, who talked impressively about how time-to-market was critical and scaling needed to happen yesterday. He seemed to focus all his energies on getting right there to top quickly and getting a lot of funding to support his expansion plans. I only appreciate and admire his zeal.
But, what I found ironical in all my discussions with him was – he seemed to have little experience in that area and was convinced his passion + funding will be enough to leave all the others behind. He is special and doesn’t need to figure out the details.
I read a book years ago called “The Mythical Man Month” (on a completely un-related topic to this one – software planning) … and there is an excellent point about how throwing more nurses and doctors doesn’t change the time it takes to deliver a baby … it will still take 9 months.
How true. Why should one not plan for the natural gestation time for the product/market to evolve or the learning curve one has? Why is that wimpy?
Sure entrepreneurs are path breakers. But, when you decided to learn how to cycle … how meaningful is it to invest and aim to win Tour-de-France that first week. Why do people not plan for the required time they or their organizations need to learn the ropes – particularly when they don’t have prior experience? Even Michael Phelps wouldn’t have jumped into the pool the first time and found his way to the Beijing Gold the next day. Not even Michael Phelps !!
(As far as competition catching up … history shows a more scenarios where the second mover had the advantage … Google wasn’t the first, neither was Apple iPod … Microsoft rarely was the first. Must be for a reason)
Aim for the Olympics Gold … but don’t ignore the process and time to learn. During that time … raising the ante thru un-natural scaling, adding people or funding or clients … may only complicate things for you … permanently jeopardizing the foundation without giving it enough time to firm up.
Be restless …. Be patient.
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Sridhar Turaga's blog 