Goodbye, 2021!
We have been a team who say they don’t want to move fast. We say we don’t want to burn out. We are the ones who say steady is smooth and smooth is fast.
We are also surrounded by a lot of teams who are moving fast — but do their teams operate at a frantic pace all the time? And we also have examples around us who moved fast, crashed fast, and now are teaching others how to drive (pun intended).
The reality is that we have been in a stage where fast wasn’t an option, (so far). Let’s change perspectives to understand, may we? Let’s take our Start-Up journey and compare it to driving up to the top of a mountain.
There are three types of roads that we would encounter around Aveiro.
- Highways
- Hilly Roads
- Backcountry Pathways
When you’re on the highway, you’re moving around 120 kmph, and your car’s engine operates at a pretty steady clip, although there are times where you must rev your engine to get up a large hill.
On a mountain pass, you’re usually going around 50 kmph, but your car’s engine is constantly revving up and down as you traverse the pass.
And on the backcountry roads, you’re traveling around 25 kmph, and most of the time, your car’s engine is working its hardest off to get up a big hill.
While going on the highway, our cars were moving at 75 kmph easily in fifth gear, but on the backcountry climb, we needed to be our lowest gears or two, allowing to max out the car speed at 25 or 30 kmph.
Yet, within each gear, a range of healthy RPMs is possible. RPM stands for revolutions per minute, measuring how fast the engine is spinning or how hard it’s working. Generally, the higher the RPMs, the more power the engine is outputting.
Over the last 18 months at VideoWiki, we’ve been operating in low to medium gear in terms of how we’re operating. New country, new regulations, COVID, etc. Said another way — we’ve been on backcountry roads as a team.
Practically, this meant a few things:
- Forced into low gear by the crisis, we had to rework our systems for the new reality.
- We had to rethink our products.
- We had to rethink our team structure and rhythms.
- We had to adapt everything for operating — at lower gears.
Throughout these slower months in terms of output, there have been times where our engines have still been revving like crazy. All because we, as a team, didn’t have our systems, processes, and the team set up appropriately for the conditions. And as a result, we had to run like crazy — the human equivalent of high RPMs — to keep things moving, albeit slowly.
Over the recent few months, we’ve shifted to a higher gear that can better support higher speeds. As a result, we’re moving forward faster as a team. We may not be on a highway yet, but we’re for sure on a mountain pass. A road where we’re moving along but experiencing times of increased engine revving as we climb steep sections “on the mountain pass.” Revenues are higher, clients are steady, and work and operations are being structured in a dependable manner so we can manage growth. Even getting vaccinated gets a lot of confidence back in the team.
2022 is upon us and, as a team, we need to decide if we move the gears further or to let the engine cool down before we hit the highway.
There are seasons for high speed. And seasons where high speed isn’t necessary. Seasons for high speed with high RPMs. And seasons for high speed at low RPMs. With the festivities coming up right now in, our operations will head into a relaxed mode to re-energize the team.
We understand the importance of vitality and creative repair our brains will need. To realize that our teams, just like our engines, can only handle high RPMs for so long. With this we get into a planning and reimagining mode for the winter months. A Start-Up is not always on bang mode, we will rest, reenergize, and return.
Communications are on. We are on. 2022 come on!
Shivam Dhawan, Dreamer @ VideoWiki
