A time for mistakes

This week's readings about venture (and entrepreneur) scalability make recommendations based upon a running theme: the inverse relationship between experience and tolerance of failure. We grow up playing by these rules. As children, we can get away with some pretty silly errors of judgement. The older we get, the higher society's expectations of us become, and the less we can afford to slip up. These perceptions have cultural and legal parallels as well.

So obvious in everyday life, this dynamic seems less obvious when it comes to business ventures. We often think that a start-up must be "just right" before setting sail, because we view business growth as a snowball, or perhaps more aptly, a seed--when was the last time you planted a tomato seed and ended up growing a cucumber? We want to plant our venture so it grows the way we want it, solving the problems and serving the customers we currently see as most relevant.

Perhaps that is why David H. Freedman chose to make comparisons to the Marines when recommending best practices for organizing a venture. As Freedman says, we expect the Marines to fit the dynamic of demanding perfection early on, of intolerance of error--lives are at stake! However, the very organization we expect to be the paragon of perfection turns out to be a case study in tolerance of error.

What I found particularly interesting in this article is that "failure tolerance also decreases with higher rank." (305) My takeaway here is that with start-ups, you should feel free to make mistakes, try things, see what happens. Of course, so many investors want to see that you've thought it all through, that you can predict the future. But, we can't predict the future. That tomato seed may actually BE a cucumber seed, much as that child may turn out quite differently from how you expected.

So, I agree that at a low level, it is best to stick to the 70% rule--be fast, not perfect, and don't wed yourself to your ideas. But keep your stakeholders informed--more on that in my next post!