The curse of knowledge when building a startup
You can never know too much… can you?
One of the first things we did at Nimblr was to get a brand identity and logo. Our first discussions entailed working with the best designer we know (he lives in another state), several meeting, proposals, focus groups, etc. The estimation was 6 weeks! Was it worth the time? We didn’t think so. Instead we went for 99 designs and 1 week work. We like the result.
One month later we had already developed a proof of concept in our laptops. It was time to setup the infrastructure (servers, databases, etc). We decided to use Amazon Web Services as our provider. In the past I had configured everything with the UI. It is fast to use but I don’t like that once I change something, I am not able to get back to the previous setup automatically. I have to remember the previous configuration. Thus we decided to code our infrastructure and version it. Once we finished I realized both of us developers spent half a week just setting up the infrastructure. Three days new features lagged, for a startup one month old. Was it worth the time? In this case, we think it is.
As a startup you excel when you can deliver useful things and do them fast. Knowledge is a curse when you don’t analyze and do what is useful to your current situation. I don’t mean to stand on the other side and stuck in analysis paralysis. Just don’t take for granted that whatever was useful to your previous venture works for the current one. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.
Tips to avoid the curse of knowledge
Write short daily goals. In the first months you need to get investors, build an MVP, get to know your customer, etc. Your startup is on life support until you don’t achieve all of these. If you keep these targets on sight and set daily goals, you will force yourself to be pragmatic. Is there time to hire that 6 week brand identity designer? Maybe for some. For us that wasn’t an option.
Use the simplest tool. Every time we are going to start a new task I just remember what I would have improved from our previous startup; what I missed and what I did great. For task tracking, should we use Jira, a Google Spreadsheet, Github issues, Trello, a new tool? Most probably that fancy tool is the right one when there are departments and teams trying to communicate. You are a team of five people, give or take. Just be pragmatic and use a tool that does the job, everyone can use (wearing many hats, anyone?) and you can afford. The goal is the process, not the tool.
Talk with your (potential) users. We built our investor deck; researched a lot about calendars, doctors and office managers; read several studies and built pie charts and graphs. With all this knowledge you may be tempted to believe you know your user. You don’t. Statistics gives you a hint of what to solve. Talk to them, know their problems first-hand, live their pain points. Now you know how to deliver value to your potential user. This process never ends.
Talk with your team / co-founders. My co-founder was giving some final touches to the investor deck. He asked me if a phrase was well written. We started discussing the content and finally replaced one concept with another. A startup team is interdisciplinary. Some are analytical, others are creative. Trust your knowledge but keep in mind all your team is thinking on the same problem. They may not share your specialty, but certainly have thought about it.
The clock is ticking
These examples have in common the mismatch between what you know you have to do and the resources available. Your knowledge can exhaust your time and money. You pay for something you won’t need; you start tinkering without being agile, etc. Keep in mind that time is scarce, competition is fierce and the market will not wait for you.
This is not an extensive list of what not to do with what you know. Everyday you learn more about your users and how to help them. Organize your knowledge. Talk with your team and help each other to keep it simple and nimble.
