Hesitation Transfers Time to Your Competitors
From Andy Grove's Lips to Your Ears
I would listen to the entire talk below at some point. Founders, managers, investors, whomever. This is a tour de force from Andy Grove, CEO of Intel talking about product innovation, company strategy, and how to manage high growth orgs effectively.
Hesitation Transfers Time To Your Competitors
I can’t get this quote out of my head. It’s like a Jeff Bezos-ism, where tons of advice is condensed into a short digestible catch-phrase. Eugene Wei wrote about this concept best in Compress to Impress where he talks about the thinking and effectiveness behind “Day 1”, “Competitor Aware, Customer Obsessed” and much more.
There’s so many areas where this simple tagline could apply to in company building but for now since it’s fresh in my mind from a number of conversations with founders, I will apply this to one of the biggest areas of hesitation that I commonly see.
It’s All About the People
Startups, when boiled down to their essence, are human coordination problems. When product cadence is slow, it’s because team members don’t understand the needs/constraints of each other. When everything is going well, it’s because team members understand how to coordinate with each other, feedback loops are tight, and handoffs for responsibilities are clear. Every few months this equilibrium falls out of place and then needs to be reassessed.
The toughest part is when a hard conversation needs to be had. This is where founders & team members hesitate the most.
I’ve had conversations recently with founders related to co-founders, leaders of a part of the org, doing a larger layoff as runway is running low, and countless other discussions.
The shared thing behind all of these conversations is the founders already know what to do. They are looking for validation of the problem which is warranted but then even still look to push the decision off.
This is where one needs to remember: “Hesitation transfers time to your competitors”.
Decision Making Leads to Speed
When you study the best performing organizations, there is a clear understanding throughout the org of what decisions need to be made from a centralized standpoint vs ones which individual nodes can make. Constellation Software is particularly good at this (read more in the below post).
This leads to faster iteration and a higher likelihood of success. If an engineer understands that they can change the “Sign Up” button to “Try Now” without having to get approval from Product & Eng leadership that means one less meeting topic, likely higher conversion of users on the website, and potentially more feedback on the freemium product.
These small things compound over time leading to a much more effective, efficient, and successful org.
Collect Feedback and Move Decisively
For anyone in this position, my advice is to doublecheck your assumptions with advisors you trust (could be your partner, friend, investor, etc). Mainly this is because human nature is to avoid tough decisions and being able to talk through with someone else clarifies the thinking in your own mind.
Once that clarity has been achieved, even though you feel the nervousness in your stomach, act decisively. The worst thing to do for both the individual in question and the team is to keep them in a spot where they cannot perform well. This drags them down as well as the rest of the team.
Deliver the decision with empathy but do not hesitate. I’ve had some founders say “well maybe just another week to see if things change”, or “we have this contract landing that will change all the dynamics”, or “I’m increasing the frequency of our 1 on 1s to fix the problem”.
None of those will work. They all prolong the decision that you already know needs to be done.
And every day that goes by, is another day your competitors get the advantage to move further ahead.
These are always tough discussions and I’ve been through at least 10 of them in the last month alone. So if anyone needs to chat, feel free to reach out and I’m happy to talk through it. Chances are though, you already know the answer and just need a push to act.
What I’ve enjoyed this week:
Great analysis by Jamin Ball on companies that at some point traded at 10x NTM and their returns from that time
Tips from Lenny and Sahil, Founder of Bravado on how to sell, set comp plans, and adjust to a challenging macro environment
Masterclass on sales, sales comp, & closing deals in touch macro Fav story is @SVMansuri closing Facebook deal at Glassdoor by creating a 9 pg report & cold-emailing every potential Sheryl Sandburg email address! Highly rec subbing to @lennysan podcast 🎉@lennysan and I went deep on how to retain customers and grow sales during a recession. If these are priorities for you in 2023, check it out. https://t.co/pvq2jLyoX1
Sahil from Bravado @SVMansuri
Detailed deep dive into the product approaches of Databricks and Snowflake and how they co-exist but also compete
The potential challenge ahead for many Generative AI companies solely focused on that as their wedge
Stunning chart about global E&P investments and the challenge now faced around the globe as years of investment has decreased going into this potential energy crisis
