The Perfect Strategy for Startups to Win: Why is it so hard to find one?
Can you future-proof your growth? was the title of a discussion at one of the most prestige and glamorous events in the business world Entrepreneur India Summit’22 (None less than a Goldmine for a Sophomore Entrepreneur like me). Six very successful founders and co-founders including Sabeer Bhatia were enlightening the discussion panel with their experiences and challenges they face in business operations. While I vaguely remembered the details of each question asked by the moderator and the answers of the panelists. But I vividly remembered Harsimarbir Singh’s (Co-founder, Pristyn Care) answer to a question of how to ensure taking the right calls. And his answer (to which the rest of the panelists agreed too) was that there’s no playbook to ensure that, in the end, you are dependent on your guts. And I believe that almost every founder/co-founder of every startup would have shared that pain.
Water-Water everywhere, not a drop to drink.
But why is it so hard? It’s not like we have just started it and we are new to industrialization. In fact, we are now in the age of the fourth industrial revolution, we have an ample amount of global history of successful companies and entrepreneurs. We have some very elite B-schools around the world having art of the state curriculum, professors, students, facilities, and environment. Then why is it so difficult to design a handbook and give it to the founders on day one of a startup to ensure the answer keys to every problem that they will encounter during the entire lifecycle of a startup? Yes!Yes! I know the question itself sounds too utopian. We will come to that, but before that, I must clarify that here I’m talking about startups and not well-established giant firms. Startups that are in their early stage, finding a fit in the market, struggling for funding, finding customers, and working in and out to create and drive end-user demand. The strategic and management skills taught in B-schools are very well equipped for the operations of a company but scarcely for a startup. Why so? Let’s give it a thought.
A startup is not a smaller version of a company.
If running a company is like going to war then running a startup is preparing for war. As obvious as the statement may sound but preparing for a war is not the same as fighting a war. In a war, the primary concern is to win, so strategies are devised for “how to win a war” or at least “survive to the end”. In preparing for war the first challenge is to enter the battleground, to be even considered an opponent first. Thus the strategies for winning are irrelevant at this point in time.
Let’s go through it from a more pragmatic point of view rather than a philosophical one.
A company has the perks of being in an existing market, they have an existing customer base and revenue streams. They understand the market, they have enough data to figure out what their customer want. While a startup has yet to find a market fit. They don’t know who their customers are, they don’t have a defined revenue stream, and they are still struggling for resources. The only certainty is the Product Vision.
A company has a well-defined matrix system they know what are the missing pieces and what to fit, where to fit, and when to fit. While a startup is still defining its matrix system, they have to figure out what pieces to use to build a matrix that fits its product vision.
I know that I know nothing
Well! the fundamental problem for startups is a Socratic paradox, that is to know what to know. Devising a strategy comes after knowing what to execute(building the matrix system). Yes! we might say that should be the nirvanic desire of a startup. The techniques that help founders reach there are the products of experimental learning, developed and discovered by going through crises. Learning and sharing stories of what succeeded and what failed. This is an iterative process instead of an intellectual one. And that is not what is taught in B-schools. Here I must say that I’m not advocating not to attend one, they are great, they are the best, in fact I would consider myself very fortunate to get admitted to. It’s just that their theories and techniques are purely intellectual and logical, well suited for a well-defined matrix system (if-else problems). If the desired outcome is A and B we need to apply Strategy 1, else if the desired outcome is A, C, and D we need to apply Strategy 2, else if we need E we have Strategy 3. But in a startup, the unpredictability is too high. The tools and techniques are refined and redefined as they are used day after day.
And I think that’s why we’ve never come to hear(or at least that I’m aware of) about a complete solution or a playbook or a handbook for the perfect strategy for startups to win. Although we are very fortunate to have some art of the state literature, authors, mentors, events, other resources, and communities in abundance that come close to “The Holy Grail” for young entrepreneurs and startups. But, since this was a “why” article and not a “how-to” we will leave it for some other time.
