A recent email exchange which touched on the subject of startup companies got me thinking. What really set me off was the question of when does a company stop being a startup. There is no doubt that at some point they all stop being a startup, either because they have matured into full fledged businesses or simply because they have failed.
There is no set time within which this must happen. Some companies go through longer startup phases than others, while a few actually mature very fast. Still, there is one thing that you can carry on with you even after your company has become a well established business: The Startup Spirit.
It isn’t really about working from your garage, as many people seem to think. It is about your ability to question what you are doing, where you are going and most important, your desire to be always looking for something new. Companies that embrace this spirit become leaders as they continually innovate, leaving it to their competitors to try and follow them.
How do you create or revive this spirit in your business? The first thing you should ask yourself is if you believe in what you are doing. It is essential that you really believe in your work, in your potential, for you to be able to question if you are doing it in the best way possible and question if there is something else that you could be doing as well. Too many people, without even thinking about it, decide that where they are and what they’ve already achieved is enough. But people who are passionate about their work will always be looking to get it a little bit better.
There are several companies which have embraced innovation and which seem to show a passion for addressing the challenge of reinventing themselves. One such company is Amazon which was a startup back in the 1990s, before the dotcom bubble burst. Now, over a decade later, Amazon has started several new lines of business, taking a leadership position in such new markets as cloud computing with its Amazon Web Services division and electronic books with the Kindle. Amazon was already an established leader in the online retail market but it didn’t just stop there. They have continuously sought new ways to optimize their business and looked for business opportunities which could be derived from those new ways and techniques.
Another great example is Apple, which has repeatedly replaced market leading products with new ones. Apple realizes that if it doesn’t release a product that can replace their previous products in the mind and hearts of the public, someone else will. At least twice Apple replaced the top selling iPod model for a new one, innovating in design, size and usability.
Once you have settled down and gotten used to being an established business, it isn’t easy to go back to thinking about what you can bring to the market. That is essentially the kind of thinking that is present in startup companies and which is important to recapture if you feel you are starting to settled on a business as usual rhythm.
Great article. I believe the “kaizen” theory best applies here. Continuous improvement is the source of successful business. That’s the challenge too. As a web designer, I’m constantly trying to stay up-to-date on current trends and technolgies so that I don’t become
irrelevant. A question I’ve been asking myself lately is what will be the “next Twitter” or “AJAX” system. Any thoughts?
Totally agree, all entrepreneurs must preserve the spirit
The eternal question of what will be next “big thing” is one of the more interesting aspects for everyone that works on a Web-based business, isn’t it?
Great thoughts – I wonder how you actually (in practice) keep the “startup spirit” in a company. E.g. how important is it to keep the employees that where in it from the beginning?
Like the article. If you not willing to replace your product with sometime better (not just newer) some else will.
I think that the spirit has a lot to do with the people involved, as much as what the business achieves. Clients and customers will get a sense of the passion put into a product and keep them coming back for more!
The word is cannibalize. You need to cannibalize your markets and replace it with no products.
totally agree..I think it is important to always push for more&better..
Great article. I think passion is one of the most important things that is needed for a person leading a startup.