The Science of the start #2: Motion

Ahead of sorting the “gravity” data, and feeling suitably inspired, this post continues to address my supposition that the world of startup businesses is a natural world with its own laws as real as those of the physical world.
Last time I looked at entrepreneurial density. This time I want to look at some fundamental classical mechanics. These will be short and conceptual.
Let us consider the Laws of Motion, as laid out by Newton (with my apologies for heavy handed metaphor).

First law:

When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either is at rest or moves at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force. [source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton’s_laws_of_motion]

Whilst there is no change in energy in a body, it remains unchanging within its environment.
This, to my mind, speaks to the concept of “disruption”. An industry at rest will remain so unless challenged by a new paradigm (I’m aware I’m slipping into buzzwordese). Breaking that down: in an established market with a number of entrenched incumbents, little will change unless acted on by an outside force.

This Newtonian Law of inertia allows us a frame of reference for other laws, and describes motion in a straight line. Of course markets are themselves rarely static or move in straight lines, and neither is it likely that they’re in control of the forces that change them. The forces of change acting to change those markets could be the introduction of new product lines, new manufacturing methods, or equally new startups competing in a way or a that the incumbents cannot match.

Second law:

The vector sum of the forces on an object is equal to the total mass of that object multiplied by the acceleration of the object. In more technical terms, the acceleration of a body is directly proportional to, and in the same direction as, the net force acting on the body, and inversely proportional to its mass. . [source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton’s_laws_of_motion]

This, surely is the cleanest analogy to why startups prevail in existing markets. They (by virtue of their lower mass) are more responsive, more able to accelerate towards a given opportunity.

The implication of conservation of momentum in the second law explains both the phenomenon of the startup “pivot” and why large, successful businesses find it so hard to react to a change in prevailing conditions within their market. The startup, on learning that their current direction is not successful can if necessary alter their direction of travel, or even perform a volte face. With so little mass, the relative momentum is low, and a hard course change possible with enough effort. As for the large business, well you only have to look to examples like RIM/Blackberry to see what happens when a body is unable to shift its mass sufficiently to overcome its directional momentum.

Third law:

When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body. [source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton’s_laws_of_motion]
The most interesting function of this concept relates to something I’ve said many times in the past: “without friction, there is no traction” (yes, I’ve just quoted myself). In order for a business to successfully achieve traction, there needs to be a “pain point”, some difficult area of friction in a customer’s life to address with a product. It could be a massive friction point for a few large customers (think global enterprise solutions / luxury bespoke items) or just as possible would be a small amount of friction for a lot of users (a method of sharing pictures online). Without that friction the product is essentially frivolous, or a poor market fit and will likely have no long term future.

Ok, these are all very abstract and interpretive. Measuring any of these to test whether the “models” fit real world figures would be difficult. If you have any idea about how startup-friction could be measured, about how the mass and direction of a business could be determined, or even how you’d quantify inertia in a market please do drop me a line on Twitter.