Most of us like to make well-meant fun of large cooperations on their seemingly inability to innovate, be nimble and quick. Tomes have been written about the subject — and even here at The Heretic we have talked about the advantage you have as an entrepreneur at least twice (“Speed. It’s all you have.” and “Speed is your Superpower and Kryptonite”).
Once a company finds product/market fit, it typically moves from innovating to defending the status quo. Arguably every large corporation is set up so, that it defends the status quo with tooth and nail.
And it does make sense: When you have a business which generates profits, has grown to a decent size and fulfills your customers’ needs, you do well in protecting this very business.
But herein lies the problem: I see this happen not only for big companies but plenty of startups — once they find something which at least feels like an equilibrium people start to defend the status quo. Suddenly you hear comments such as “why should we change this, it works!”, “I don’t think this is a good idea” or “we have been doing it this way since we started, why change?”.
This is a slippery slope. The market moves faster and faster. And as much as we need to leverage what works, we also need to stay alert at any given time and never allow ourselves to rest.
Di-Ann Eisnor, Director of Growth at Waze, calls this “Rebel Against Yourself”.
Keep pushing my friends. Relentlessly.
Now excuse me. I need to kick some dust off some things we haven’t looked at for a while…