Thinking about your goal with a startup

December 16, 2012starting up

I often reflect upon the differences between my previous startup and Buffer, and think about what changes to my mindset affected the better outcome this time compared with my previous attempts.

One of the mindset adjustments which I think has had a large impact on my success is to think about what my goal as an entrepreneur is. The key thing has been to focus on a goal of succeeding overall with creating a startup, rather than to focus on being successful with a particular idea. It’s an interesting tweak to your thinking, but one which I’ve found very powerful.

A goal to succeed with an idea

With my previous startup, one of the mistakes I made was to make my sole aim to succeed with the particular idea that I started with. Despite that fact that I still made adjustments to the idea and it changed a little, I had a mindset that I wanted to make the idea work. I struggled, with little traction and almost zero retention.

When the goal is to succeed with the idea you have, you don’t give yourself much room to course-correct. The fact is, that almost all startups change considerably over their lifetime, so to stay fixated on that original idea can be detrimental to the success of the startup.

A goal to create a successful startup

"If you don’t succeed with your current startup, it’s not your fault. If you’re not successful in your career, it is your fault." - Chris Yeh

The better approach I’ve found is to focus solely on being successful with your startup, without the idea being involved in that equation. That way, you allow for the required change in order to arrive at an eventual success, rather than limiting your ability to adjust and move towards success.

I truly believe that if you have not found something that works, something that people are using and find valuable, then you should be doing nothing but trying to reach that goal. In essence, if you are pre-product/market fit, then your only goal should be to reach product/market fit. What I want to suggest is that the goal of any startup founder should be to reach product/market fit with an idea, not necessarily the idea they started with.

This ties in very well with the lean startup notion of validated learning being the measure of progress. A lot of the formalities can be forgotten in the early days of a startup. No need to incorporate, no need for an office. Just try to learn about your customers and figure out if your assumptions about your idea and market are correct. If not, make changes. If you need to make a big change and arrive at a whole different idea, then do it.

It’s a change in mindset

It may seem quite obvious to read, but I’ve found personally that this is very difficult in practice. I think a key reason Buffer was more successful than my previous endeavours was that I had reached a point with enough previous failure that I wanted so bad to succeed with something, with anything. That meant I didn’t mind if it was this idea or another I discovered. That slight shift in mindset makes you much more eager for feedback and learning, and makes you genuinely open to changing the idea based on that feedback. This means you listen and people can tell that you are truly appreciative of their time.

Your goal should not be to succeed with a particular idea. Your goal should be to create a successful startup.

Have you previously found yourself limited by a goal focused on an idea, rather than being open to change?

Photo credit: Kreg Steppe