F#$k Start-Up
I want to talk about something that may upset a few people, in fact, some people might see this point of view as downright offensive. The concern I have is with our take on the term “Start-Up”.
I see the term “Start-Up” as a potentially dangerous label we are increasingly prone to using. I will argue that the term “Start-up” brings with it a false idealism that makes us feel bigger than we are. This, in and of itself, can make us lose our perspective about our own reality.
Now if you think I am nitpicking, I want you to consider the difference in a BBQ conversation that goes like this:
Q: “What do you do Scott?”
A: “Oh, I work for myself, in my own small business in ‘X Field’”
This may, of course, leave the person wondering any one of the following possibilities:
“I wonder why Scott couldn’t get a job”
“Wow that’s got to be tough”
“Just scratching out a living hey”
One thing is certain though, answer that very simple question in this way, and watch the person’s face drop, an avalanche of apathy often ending in a change of subject. (#awkward as my daughter would say.)
Now take the very same question and apply a different answer to it:
Q: “What do you do Scott?”
A: “Me, I lead a start-up in ‘X-Field”
Now watch the reaction, as the person moves forward with intrigue and excitement thinking:
“Wow a startup, that’s got to be fun”
“This guy might be onto something here, I’d better ask more questions”
“It takes guts to back yourself like that”
People, let me be the one to say; how utterly f%$ing ridiculous! That using the word “start-up” would have someone drawing completely different conclusions to the same situation. I see this as part of the problem.
Starting a business is challenging.
Staying in one can be really tough.
Winning in one is statistically improbable.
These are the facts of the matter.
And this is my issue!
I feel that glamorising small business with an apparently more acceptable word is doing us damage. I think it gives us a false sense of our reality and I would also go so far as to say that using the word “start-up” infers, in the minds of many, that someone has succeeded before they have effectively started much at all.
Now given that the failure rates for small business are alarmingly 90%, I think a solid dose of reality isn’t just medicinally relevant but essential to not underestimating the challenges that lay ahead.
In case you think I am being harsh, just last year 49% of “start-up failures” were due to their being no market for the product or service. Yes, that’s right, nearly half of all failures are down to the fact that people are making shit that nobody actually wants! Good, God! (This makes me feel somewhat better because I did this myself back in 2004).
If that statistic doesn’t scream a reason to take a good hard look at our sense of reality in small business, I’m not sure what does. This, of course, leaves us to ponder the two most important challenges for small businesses getting out of the blocks:
Just because YOU CAN doesn’t mean YOU SHOULD! and the super important ...
Just because THEY SHOULD, doesn’t mean THEY WILL
It’s the second one that bit me on the butt back in ‘04, when I had supposed that personalised & targeted communication was the answer to poor response rates from marketing campaigns. I might have been right, but I needed the market to agree with me more than they evidently did; a valuable lesson in meeting the market, where they are.
What I am really saying is that having anything but a realistic picture of our position in the world, and the challenge of winning, is in fact, the enemy of winning.
With the number of new businesses consistent climbing, against a backdrop of high failure rate and moreover only 50% of start-ups actually commercialising, I am a YES to more realistic and grounded thinking about what business we are actually in, and to the challenging of grandiose positions that rob us of a clear perspective.
Further, I think the behaviour also needs to reflect such a reality too, I have to say, that I am at odds with the celebration before victory culture the “Start-up” community is now famous for. (See Shem Magnezi’s amusing read on this here: http://bit.ly/32tPNSx )
As Shem attests, there is plenty to say here about whether we think the behaviour of early-stage start-ups and communities in any way even remotely resembles the first 24 months of the journey for the likes of Zuckerberg, Musk & Besos for example. I’d argue that the table tennis came sometime later.
So, this is a call for being realistic and grounded about where we actually are. This was the intention of the tongue in cheek joke I posted yesterday: The Start-Up lookup table.
The most concise summary of my point is, if using the term Start-Up is a way of avoiding the truth about where we are, then seriously folks “F$#k Start-Up”
What are your thoughts on the lingo we use in the new business community and if it serves us?