Asking the right questions to make tough decisions; I disagree but you're OK: staying civil and having good discourse
Some time in my late thirties, during my second CXO role I think, I realised that asking the right questions is way more important than having answers.
Asking the right questions of yourself, of your team, of your business partners – questions yield better results than giving solutions or following simplified playbooks. I’m pulling together a list of questions to ask in business in different scenarios, and here’s one situation where the right questions make all the difference. If a founder comes to me with this conundrum, I would never tell them what to do – I would ask them questions to ponder. (And only steer them once they can answer some questions.)
Say you’ve been building your startup for 18 months, and you’ve gained some traction – but not a lot. You are wondering if you should stick with it and keep working hard or abandon the idea and start a new business, perhaps in a space that is getting a lot of attention and funding at the moment. (AI!! Everything is AI!)
Someone tells you to stick with it, as building a business is hard and grit is everything. Someone else says you should abandon building this startup because ‘just enough traction’ can be the road to slow death. Who do you listen to?
To make a decision, ponder these questions and see where the answers take you. There are no right or wrong answers, and there is no one correct solution.
What was your original goal with your startup? Did you want a decent business that brings profit so you can live well and not be employed? Did you want to build a generational business? Did you want to build something fast so you could sell it quickly to a competitor or a consolidator? Did you want to be an acquihire for a big tech company? Did you want to raise external funding (VCs) to grow fast and find a VC-approved exit, like an IPO? Something else?
Why did you start building this particular product? Were you committed to solving a particular problem? Did you have a solution that tested well with a market segment and you built it? Did you jump on a bandwagon to raise VC funding?
How close are you to product market fit (when there is a strong, sizeable market that wants your product for a problem they want solved and are willing to pay for it)? What’s your competitive position in this market? Is there a better market segment out there for your product/profit/growth?
How strong or weak is your current business considering the time and effort that went into it, really?
Is there one thing you can tweak to turbocharge growth? Is it about funding sales or expansion? An attribute of the product/service?
What is the attraction of refocusing on the new idea? Is it new and hyped (AI now, blockchain before)? Can you see an actual, real-life use case for it? Is there a problem you could solve with this idea and would people pay for it?
Are the current product and the new one linked by trying to solve the same problem?
What kind of feedback have you been getting on your current product from potential investors? (Investors who invest regularly and seriously, such as VCs. Not your mum or ex-colleague from your corporate days.)
What has been the feedback from your paying customers? What about those who declined to purchase?
Competitive Landscape: Are you in a crowded market? Or one where there are too few players? Same questions for the new product.
This is not an exhaustive list, just one to get you going. These questions will also lead to more questions if you are serious about this exercise. Good luck!
I disagree, but you’re OK
If you look at public discourse today, it often feels like experts think that anyone who disagrees with their views is an idiot. As polarization and identity politics spread across domains, somehow it became not just acceptable, but even the norm to adopt the attitude that if you don’t agree with everything I say, then you are stupid. Instead of getting into respectful, productive, and enjoyable debates about complex issues, many experts and business people sink into self-righteous nasty discourse. It doesn’t have to be this way.