Happy new year everyone!
One of my resolutions in 2018 was to start writing again. I don’t know if lots of people will read this blog but I started this with the aim of sharing some of the ideas from real investments and the variety of books, blogs and podcasts I read and hopefully helping at least one startup founder have an idea they can really use in their business. So my goal is to write once a week or fortnight, about things that interest me, and hopefully interest you too.
Anyway, our office reopens tomorrow for the start of business year 2018. The new year means the start of new resolutions and new goals. And nothing says start of the startup year than company strategy retreat days.
Company strategy days are a strange beast – too many ideas or too many people and nothing gets accomplished and all the ideas are too general. But make it too small, and you don’t get enough buy-in from key people who actually do customer-facing work in the organisation and you run the risk that you just affirm the current strategy because it’s the CEO’s baby and they are leading the session.
Examples of poor conclusions I have heard at strategy days:
“Wow, that was an unexpected year, wish we’d picked a different channel partner. Let’s try another one next year and see how that goes ”
“Metrics spreadsheet? Yeah we don’t have one of those”
“Yes, we definitely should sell more products. That would definitely be a great goal for us this year”
“I think our product is market leading – but the sales guys just aren’t selling. I guess it’s a tough market, what can you do”
“How about that Bitcoin! Let’s put all our money into Dogecoin instead”
So how do you make the most of the start of 2018? How do you ensure that you actually use this time to rethink your strategy and redefine your business? I’ve recently been re-reading Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm”. I recommend this to every enterprise software business I meet. I will continue to recommend this book – yes that’s right YOU should buy it, frame it and give it to all your sales staff.
This week’s blog post will go through two of the exercises in Crossing the Chasm that I have been seeing having real effects in developing competitive positioning and go-to-market strategy in our startups. Until then, see you next time – it’s exciting to be writing again!
JC