Start-Up Suicide: Circling The Wagons
…and shooting inward.
Of course, this sort of messy self-annihilation isn’t limited to start-ups. The bullets can start flying in any size or type of group whenever panic sets in. Fear can make otherwise smart good people do stupid bad (and incredibly petty) things - to themselves and each other. Forget the rah-rah team talk. The CEO decides he needs to micromanage data entry in customer service. The head of customer service decides she needs to tell the CFO how to do her job. The CFO starts writing long detailed recommendations for the engineers. And, everyone decides they should do marketing’s job!
Of course, while all this circlin’ and shootin’ is going on, nobody is actually doing the function for which they were hired (at least not well.) Plans don’t get implemented. Customer questions don’t get answered. Invoices don’t get processed. Bills don’t get paid. Software doesn’t get tested…and marketing ends up in some godawful scatter-shot mode. Or, even worse, everyone decides to run off and “do marketing” without coordinating or communicating with the others (including those who have to ultimately deliver on the marketing promises.) “Hey, do postcards to a big list! says the CFO. “I’ve read that can really work!”
This is why it’s absolutely critical to have the right people first. It’s easy to link arms and sing Kumbaya around the campfire when things are going well.
As an old friend (a Special Forces vet) once told me, “Courage is when you’re scared out of your f***ing mind and you still do the right thing.” And he had been leaping out of planes with his team while people were literally shooting at them…sorta puts all that start-up panic in perspective, doesn’t it?
Related Posts:
Start-Up Suicide: Mine Is Bigger Than Yours.
Start-Up Success: People Before Plan
Start-Up Success: A Smart, Effective CEO
Tags: marketing, business development, business planning, start-ups, entrepreneurs, entrepreneur sanity check
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January 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Ha! Love the quote! Is very similar to a very … *popular*
quote from an Australian cricketer who had also flown in the RAAF in WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Miller
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When asked many years later by Michael Parkinson, about pressure on the cricket field, Miller responded with the famous quote: “pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not.”
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But entertaining detours aside.
Points taken! Have seen this myself in a startup that survived (IMHO) only by managing to get bought out.
The junior finance assistant was able to all but become the CIO. Quite incredible for someone that barely knew how to use excel; and who felt that we didn’t need to spend any money on backups. Computers don’t fail doncha know.
Bitter and twisted? Who ME!?!?!
Cheers!
January 9th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Ah, Steve, isn’t it fun working in start-ups? (Actually it is - until they go pear-shaped). Some day we’ll have a virtual ‘tooni together and I’ll tell you my sad, sad story of the common stock that - poof! - disappeared.
Gee, you mean computers don’t work sometimes? I’m shocked!