The Greatest soft skill you’ve never thought about
If you listen closely, you can hear the messengers of the Mt Olympus of tech, Silicon Valley, shouting out through content that will guide you to the heavens. Begin to parse through the noise and you soon will find a clear signal of entrepreneurial reasoning. Its loud, its brash, and its repeated by every titan of tech. Iteration is the process that leads to true product success.
ahh, another blog on a common sense topic…. WRONG, read through the lines, we’ve stumbled across one of the most coveted soft skills out there. How to spot and tie into common threads that lead to success.
I call these golden ropes, and the only way to find them is to first find a trace of a common thread. At risk of sounding too allegorical, I will explain it simply.
A golden thread is a principle that is relied on and preached by an experienced captain of an industry or subject. A golden rope, is a principle that transcends the industry or subject, which is relied upon by a host of elites in that field.
The real task is determining whether one principle is insular to a particular brand or group rather than a category. For instance, take the move fast and break things mantra of the Paypal mafia and early years of Facebook. This now-infamous principle was a firebrand that inspired countless entrepreneurs to seek out fast funding and viral exposure. But this tactic is one of the major reasons why the success-to-fail ratio is so grim for startups. Big media hype is not sustainable with a meager product development and an I’ll-figure-it-out-when-I-get-there attitude. Its clear that thread may be common to a few, but does it really intertwine with the a large percentage of successful startups?
Paul Graham of YCombinator nailed this topic in a dinner speech titled, How not to Die.
“Startups almost never get it right the first time. Much more commonly you launch something, and no one cares. Don’t assume when this happens that you’ve failed. That’s normal for startups. But don’t sit around doing nothing. Iterate.”
Working closely with your core users while iterating a product feature until perfection is a golden rope of the startup world. You will hear it in every good book, blog, and podcast surrounding the subject of product launch and marketing. And with each signal, it should become clearer in the mind that this process is one that you should emulate.
That’s why the edtech space is so undervalued right now. It’s such a vast ranging ecosystem that its difficult for consumers and businesses to parse through the underlying message. Its difficult to find the golden rope. What you will begin to see is that the people behind the technology and strategy do have a common thread. That they want to impact a community, from their hometown school system to the entire sector of government itself. The entrepreneurs behind edTech understand that technology can make the difference, that if one student is better served and encouraged to graduate then that will ripple through society.
This article is the first of a 3 part series covering the ins and outs of an underserved concept, how to exceed in an unrelated area. Follow along to learn to how to train and adopt this mental toolkit.
Nxed is an ed-tech firm of talented creatives whom are deeply passionate about bringing universities into the 21st century by the intersection of technology and education. Stay connected with our story and leave a comment, check us out at Nxed.io.
Until then, “Keep Thinking” — Nxed team.
