Jun 16, 20202 min
We love this podcast. Masters of scale is a podcast hosted by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of Linked-in. He interviews entrepreneurs (both social and business) about different aspects of scaling a successful startup.
I have found the discussions, and the way they are packaged, very useful and challenging. In this podcast, Reid interviews Eric Reis, the author of Lean Startup. They highlight a truth that has challenged me many times over the years. The best plans never survive first contact. Big business plans and extensive analysis can be impressive, but they can also just be wrong! As Reid says: stop writing and start testing.
Some of the key takeaways from the discussion:
The Lockhead "Skunkworks" was a great early example of iterating quickly and valuing outcomes over process
Applying the scientific method to your business development endeavours means thinking deeply about setting up your moves as scientific experiments. Be explicit about what hypotheses you are testing and design your first move to provide as much information as possible.
To "pivot" means to use emerging data and experience to change some fundamental part of your endeavour while staying true to the vision. This means that at crucial points in the process of building a startup - or a new business development venture - know when to change your approach if something is not working, while using the learnings already built up.
As Comotion, we often find ourselves in discussions about new business ideas and ventures. Software development needs to take an iterative approach to succeed, particularly when dealing with new ventures. There is a distinct temptation to assume that "if we build it they will come." For this reason, we make sure we operate on agile methodology, which focusses on getting working software out the door as early as possible - so that the learnings can be made as early as possible.
For this reason, we use a combination of low-code technology (in the Mendix Platform), and our own suite of growing products that help financial services companies to innovate. This includes comodash.io, that help companies include data insights in their workflows and product.