All in Private Equity
I know it’s a cliché to say this but we learn far more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.
The reasons are obvious, of course. Through our mistakes, we gain practical experience in what not to do - and it’s this experience that generates knowledge that is seared into our subconscious, often painfully so.
One of Google’s tenets is “Fast is better than slow”.
The idea is that ‘getting to market’ i.e. shipping your product even if it isn’t perfect, is the most important thing. Instead of spending time nailing down every last detail, we need to put out a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and let the market tell us what needs to be improved.
Get funded!
If you float around social media long enough and follow certain cohorts or hashtags, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there are only a few paths to entrepreneurial success - and even fewer paths that are ”right”.
In particular, the pressure is to get funded - or at least that’s the option that provides (is given) the most ’social’ credibility.
There’s an adrenaline rush, a state of heightened performance, that comes with growth, when things are going well. It’s a positive state because it’s a sign that others value what we’re doing and, by definition, in increasing numbers.
All of us want that kind of growth for our enterprises (and ourselves) because it is a sign that things are working. That kind of growth motivates the organization and pushes us to believe, commit ourselves and achieve more. All good things.
I read a tweet the other day about a founder who was worried that his company was growing at “only” 25% a year and, as a result, felt he needed to get bought.
Now, to any objective observer, if you were to set up a business that returned 25% top line growth year over year, that would be considered, without question, a successful enterprise. I mean, we’ve all heard that stat about how 80% of new businesses fail within the first year. So then to not only get past that but to also flourish and grow, is a heck of an achievement.
Today's episode focuses on the myth of the all-rounder.
We're programmed to try and be good at everything, and when we don't hit the mark, we taught to judge ourselves negatively. But the fact is we all have spikes and, while general knowledge is a good thing, our spikes are what really matter.
I heard an interesting comment the other day at a panel of Founders and Venture Capitalists.
Someone made the observation that when the world went online during COVID, the available money went - predominantly - to ‘known’ founders (versus first time entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs that VCs didn’t know).
Beating the dealer. It’s the eternal quest.
How do I upset the odds? How do I move the needle to get what I want?
At its core, it’s really a desire to remain in control, to stay relevant. But it’s worth remembering what game we’re trying to play as well.
Strategy matters.
A good strategy differentiates your offering. It galvanizes the right resources to their best effect. It positions your organization for success.
A good strategy, though, is just the starting point. Once you’ve mapped out your path, you still need to run it.
And a badly run race will slow you down, allow your competition to gain on you and overtake you, possibly even prevent you from finishing.
It’s a fact that strong financial management is fundamental to sound business management. If your revenues don’t exceed your costs on a consistent basis, you will be out of business soon enough.
There’s simply no arguing with that. You can layer in whatever complexity you like, but that truism still holds (which is why it’s a truism).
This month's podcasts delve into the seeds of entrepreneurship, where these crazy ideas come from and what they mean for us, as entrepreneurs.
In today's episode, I discuss the nature of ideas, and specifically great ideas. What is it about great ideas that makes them endure? What kind of environment allows such ideas to break through? What do we need to keep in mind to make sure these ideas break through?
This month's podcasts delve into the seeds of entrepreneurship, where these crazy ideas come from and what they mean for us, as entrepreneurs.
In today's episode, I talk about ideas and how the great ones are - and should be - polarizing. They should engage or enrage, but nothing in between.
This month's podcasts delve into the seeds of entrepreneurship, where these crazy ideas come from and what they mean for us, as entrepreneurs.
In today's episode, I talk about where ideas get their start. Many times, we think of successful businesses as always having been full formed, from origin through execution. The reality is that it all starts with a hunch.
I’m not a big fan of the TV show, Shark Tank. It has too much of a contrived, over-the-top vibe to it with an extra helping of meanness served up by a couple of the “sharks”. I also don’t like it when entrepreneurs with good ideas give away too much of their company in return for, at least what I perceive as, too little in return. (You can chalk this off as the grumblings of a fellow, aging entrepreneur…)
The more complex the transaction, the more difficult it is for everyone to emerge with everything on their wish list. That’s just the nature of the beast.
Political negotiations illustrate this perfectly and very publicly. You have dueling parties, fueled by competing ideologies, each proposing what they believe to be in the best interests of their constituents. (Yes, I know that politicians are driven more by what they think their voters will want to hear versus what they need to hear, but humor me for a bit.)
In today's podcast, I continue this month's riff on uncertainty and risk, and talk about change. It's a topic that we all have to deal with, whether we like it or not.
Change is a critical part of our growth and how we deal with it is make or break. This episode discusses the two key steps that I believe we need to take to tackle the change we see in our lives, head on.
When we went through the Great Recession of 2008/2009, I remember thinking to myself (perhaps consoling myself) that I would never see an economic downturn as bad as that ever again in my lifetime. I mean, the scale of the trouble at the time was such that multiple markets around the world, multiple sectors, multiple categories, all got hit at once, and the resultant economic malaise took years to overcome. Surely, something at that scale could never happen again?
Well, never say never, I guess.
In my last post, I talked about the importance of avoiding stasis in your strategy, that being comfortable with the middle ground is a straight path to irrelevance. Maybe not today, but certainly someday.
So a response - an active, progressive strategy to do something is absolutely essential. It’s essential to be on the front foot and proactively define a clear plan for continued success.
That doesn’t, however, have to mean going after the big boys head-to-head. It doesn’t necessarily mean trying to become THE market leader.
We tend to think of the middle ground as a safe space to be in. You’re not out on a limb at the bleeding edge, but you’re also not trailing the pack. There’s no bloodthirsty Coke versus Pepsi battle at play, but you’re also not spending your days fighting for survival.
It’s tempting to get comfortable there. You simply play your position, fight with other ‘middle of the road’ brands and focus on the ‘middle of the road’ customers
I was speaking with a client the other day about a specific change initiative they were about to implement.
The client’s team had been working off of a planning process that was individualized and not institutionalized, and hence, had different leaders at the same level working at different levels of depth and rigor, from the amount of data they utilized during that process to the quality of the analysis and output.
Not an entirely uncommon phenomenon in many big companies and one that had evolved over the years as a result of organic and inorganic growth. All the same, this was now leading to missed opportunities and a lack of true strategic alignment.
