Stop looking for perfect and start looking for right.
I recently took a family vacation to Hawaii where we all wanted to learn how to body board. We were trying to teach ourselves and I, being a young(ish) male, did what every red-blooded male does— went out to find the biggest wave to practice on.
The results were predictable: I crashed. Hard. Got a nice bump on my forehead and legitimate whiplash. So, what does this have to do with business? Everything. Let’s look at two lessons we can learn from riding the waves.
Lesson 1: Learn Small, Fail Small
Picture the waves as various markets. In business, especially startups, we think we need to look for the biggest market and aim for it. Armed with very little experience, we paddle out. Even if we manage to get to the largest wave (a difficult task in itself), how are we going to ride it? We don’t know how. Or worse, what if we do manage to ride it… only to later learn it was all luck. And the next time out, we crash hard.
Businesses have limited resources. Regardless of a company’s size, we are all limited by time, money, effort, and energy. How do we best deploy those resources to new markets? Small waves at a time.
If there’s one constant in developing new markets, it’s this: you will fail. That failure can be a few bumps and bruises, or it can be fatal. Would you rather fail riding a three-foot wave or a ten-foot wave? Smart people fail small. Gather insights, ride the small waves a few times, and then (armed with experience and success), find a bigger wave. Rinse and repeat until you’re riding the biggest wave you can.
Lesson 2: Don’t Get Too Far Ahead of the Wave
When we have a new product or service idea, there’s a lot of pressure to perfect it. To put all the bells and whistles on it. Let’s picture the wave as the customer and we are the body boarder. In body boarding, if you get too far in front of the wave, it will crash right on top of you.
The same is true with new products and services. If we force the customer to make a too big of a leap? If we’re too far in front of the customer? We’ll never ride the wave. Our innovation will crash. We have to build one or two steps ahead of the customer so they can see the application. The vision. How the product or service helps them.
The right waves for us to ride are rarely what we initially thought was the “perfect” wave. And early on, it’s never the biggest wave. Accept that you’re going to crash and be sure to pick the wave that will allow you to learn without bruising more than your ego. Then? After you crash? Shake off the sand, and get back out there!
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