A startup isn’t a marathon, it’s the Tour de France
It’s an old analogy which tries to point out that you can’t sprint through your start-up, you’ll run out of energy. It isn’t a short road, so be prepared to put in some time.
This is an ok analogy but to me a start-up is more like the Tour de France (or other multi-stage bike race), let me explain...
A Start-up has multiple stages, like the Tour
A marathon is a single day event. You may do all your preparation beforehand, but it all comes down to how you do on that one day. In the Tour, one day decides your position, but it doesn’t decide your fate. You don’t get to sit back at the end of the day and congratulate yourself, you have to be ready to do it all again the next day.
Each stage of your start-up is much like a stage of The Tour
In the early days, you’re more likely to have sprint stages. Times when moving quickly is the most important thing, iterating quickly to get yourself in the best position to serve the customer.
As you grow, you’ll have longer, harder days. Days with big climbs, where all-nighters and new features won’t improve your lot, but grinding out growth can be painful. Or time trials where you put your head down for a long stretch of working through issue after issue. It could be funding challenges, technical, cultural, or any number of other things.
It’s not just you, it’s the work of the entire team
A start-up is a team event. Some teams may be smaller than others, sometimes you’re a team of one, but there are clear roles and responsibilities, just like on a cycling team. You’ve got the sprinters, lead-outs, climbers, time-trailers, and domestiques. Though one or two people on the team may get all the glory, it is only working as a cohesive unit that the team can win.
Cycling is a sport of Strategy
Many people don’t see the strategy of cycling, but if you know the sport, you know it’s there. Cooperate with a competitor to help each other get a leg-up, give up a bit of progress one day so you know you’ll be somewhat rested for an upcoming important stage. Let the points of a climb go and attack just after the crest to get a jump on competitors on a descent.
From the very beginning, the Tour de France understood their customer
The Tour de France began in 1903 as a way to increase sales of a newspaper. The customer was not the cyclist, it was the fans. The Tour has changed significantly over the years, and the customer has changed too. Today, the customer is the sponsors, the teams are the partners, who have their own customers to satisfy. The riders make the content/product to be consumed by the audience and associated with the sponsor/customer brand.
Plan ahead and look for what’s next
I came to realize this analogy was a better fit than the marathon while building the 3d virtual world maps of the Tour de France at Doarama and as the Tour draws to a close, we have just released the maps for the upcoming 2016 Rio Olympics
