The problem is that ideas are like lighting a campfire if you overwhelm them with large logs too soon or if you start with wet kindling they will not thrive. You need to have good dry kindling and then stoke the flames with gentle air and small twigs until a strong flame can handle the big logs. When people get enamored with the novelty of their own ideas the tendency is to try to get them as big as possible as fast as possible. I have heard from entrepreneurs in the past if only we can have more people, time, or space the idea would be amazing. Unfortunately, this is not how the world works. One phrase that has helped me remember to pace the scaling journey and make critical decisions is, “Don’t love to death.”
As a new concept is being investigated the phrase provides an excellent counterpoint to the tendency to over-scale, over-engineer, or over-build a project before there is enough data to support that investment.
This means giving projects and initiatives the space to grow and breathe without putting so much pressure that they must succeed immediately. Growth in a new area is likely non-linear, so recognizing that setbacks may occur and forward progress is not always going to be one foot in front of the other. Our ideas can only be successful when others buy-in. And that only happens when we invite and listen to feedback. But, most importantly, a team needs to implement what is heard and measure the results.
When you cling to an idea, remaining open to critical feedback is essential. We’ve all been there — we’ve poured our heart and soul into something, only to have it not be received as expected or fizzle out. The critical step is to get actual customer or user responses as fast as possible and iterate the concept until you have something that is serving the user’s goal, the initial idea is not the ending point it is the starting point.
Every project should have a clearly stated objective. When we were evaluating potential business models a critical component was understanding how our potential customers would behave and that needed to be backed by actual potential users. So what did we do? We actually talked with our target demographic. If our idea about how they might pay or interact wasn’t backed up by data we move to where they were at rather than trying to force the world to fit our model. Successful projects are founded on a set of goals and since people are always involved in implementing a set of biases comes with each team member. This is where having good data and the ability to gather the data
Another issue that is one that admittedly happens more in large corporations than smaller startups is over-resourcing a project. Big companies and well-funded teams have a tendency to throw money and people at problems. To quote one of the smartest developers I know, “Nine women can’t make a baby in a Month.” Keeping a perspective on the pace of development and having clear milestones agreed upon helps to keep the resource creep from happening too soon.
We are building new and transformative approaches to live streaming media, and we are looking to partner with amazing artists and performers, and people who never even thought that a stage was a space they needed to be. It is not a straight line from idea to implementation and as we discover more about how performers want to work with our new platform we are listening and pivoting. We love our ideas but we are always clear that solving real problems for artists and their fans is where we start from.