Momentum Trumps Prfectn
For any startup, there is an ever-shifting balance required between the desire to "Get Stuff Going" (Momentum) and the desire to "Get Stuff Just Right" (Perfection). While the qualities of Momentum and Perfection are obviously both very important, I would argue that Momentum should always trump Perfection early on. Getting confused on this can screw up a company before it even gets started.Momentum is the fuel for literally every aspect of the young company's operational success: Team assembly, product development, funding and revenues. Starting a company is an unnatural act. It therefore requires an immense amount of energy to successfully come into being and reach the point of profitable self-sufficiency. The key to getting to that self-sufficiency is creating cycles of energy that become increasingly Perfected with every iteration... Think of it this way: Momentum buys you iterations to achieve Perfection. We have to plan intensely and well, get as close to a Perfect hire/product plan/market plan/capital raise as we can, then you have to just go execute, because that is how Momentum is established. I would rather get things 80% right and be moving forward with increasingly effective (read: historical error-correcting) execution than to have perfected an aspect of the company at the expense of getting momentum. This might seem obvious, but its sometimes tricky to catch ourselves when we are inadvertently elevating Perfection above Momentum. Here are 10 random examples that a team might be elevating Perfection over Momentum. I'm sure you can think of more:1. Waiting for the entire team to get assembled to start developing product. (Start building what you can with who you have!)
2. Shopping for ideal funding terms when the ones you have are good enough (There is a big opportunity cost to execution for a small team to hunt the perfect whale for funding)
3. Trying to bake-in details of today's market reality into a product that won't be out for a year (You're probably over-designing.)
4. Developing go-to-market plans that hinge on contingent future successes ("When we achieve x, then y is a slam dunk. So, we should have z in 12 months.)
5. Holding off on a launch of a product because one or two key features are behind schedule
6. Not pursuing a big customer because you think they'll say no because the product is not "feature-rich" yet
7. Letting customer/user requests for features drive your product planning to excess (fear of disappointment)
8. Holding off on doing something because a future rockstar employee (architect, sales VP, new CEO) is supposed to be onboard in "the next month or so" (Rule of thumb: If something is truly happening at any time in the next 2 months, you'd already know exactly when. If you don't know exactly when, its at least a quarter away.)
9. Not firing an employee because you think you can fix their deficiencies in short order (aka, "Perfect" their wrongs... Newsflash: You can't usually do this in a startup. You made a bad hire. Get over it and get rid of them as fast as you legally and ethically can, even if it means a few things drop. Preserving team momentum and standards are worth it.)
10. Waiting to pursue additional funding until you think the company is in "optimal position" to get a good valuation. (It will take longer than you think, and you risk slowing everything down and decreasing negotiation leverage. Go for it early.)Momentum is extremely powerful, but it means developing a tolerance for imperfection. We are not in the business of Perfect, we're in the business of making things happen that get closer to Perfect over time. "Fail forward fast" is a great saying by Tom Peters. That's exactly what we're talking about here when we value Momentum over Perfection.
