Search for success or plan for failure

Events from the past few years teach businesses not to predict anything with certainty; established plans and known models are susceptible to unexpected change. Today’s entrepreneur avoids learning backwards; repeating past triumphs no longer guarantees future success. As established commercial pillars collapse, the 21st century economic model becomes unrecognisable. Open-source frameworks, cloud services and traditional-skills relocation transform the commercial landscape, yet businesses still misinterpret randomness as talent and fail to embrace a jack-of-all-trades mentality.

I started my company with these key factors in mind. Utilising a service and process background, I looked to new business startups and recognised insufficient traditional approaches. Current business models need more than improvement, they need continual reinvention: innovate thinking, continuous learning, new skills and ideas. I could apply this thinking to a micro-service model.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”– Mike Tyson

Small businesses are not miniature versions of large, change-averse corporations with intricate plans dictating how they operate. The Business Plan is an anachronism: it overlooks market changes, ignores randomness (unexpected events) and rejects flexibility (who predicts five years ahead when the next five hours are unknown?). Business Plans also assume too much: an opportunity to exploit, a problem to solve, a guaranteed success. Rigidity, inflexibility and assumption are anathema to iterative, progressive business minds.

The approach I took is based on entrepreneur Eric Ries‘ Lean Startup Model.

My company embraces Agile, transparency, continual learning and adaptation: finding order in chaos. We listen to people’s needs and react accordingly, failing fast (learning immediately if something is not working) and changing course as necessary. Moving from failure to failure improves iterative ideas and creates a repurposed business model. Not everyone wins, and failure is key: it drives entrepreneurs to search for success instead of planning for failure.

Image from http://theleanstartup.com