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Ask HN: Does your startup change directions on a daily basis?
Hi, posting anonymously. This is my first time at a startup (I previously worked for one of the big internet companies).
Decision-making control at our startup is firmly in the hands of a few b-school types (sales, marketing). In the last six weeks or so, they've been changing our strategy on a daily basis. It's affecting the way we engineer our site and more importantly, we've lost faith that our product / sales / marketing teams can execute towards a common goal.
My questions for HN:
1) Is this common for non-engineering-focused startups?
2) How do you guys deal?
Thanks. Please share thoughts / stories.
- hga 16y agoDo you literally mean "daily" (as in, say, every 1-3 working days)? How are the b-school types measuring success? (Are they measuring at all???)
- coryl 16y agoYou've talked to your colleagues I assume?
- samohacker 16y agoYeah they know we are frustrated.
- virtubill 16y agothis seems to happen even in engineering-focused start-ups. in the past i have actually sat down with the business folks and talked about how the lack of focus is affecting product quality which directly affects revenue. not to mention what it does to moral when you feel like what you are working on today will most likely just be thrown out tomorrow for some new agenda. there was a lot resistance at first but i was very clear that i just wanted to open this up for discussion since my main concern was for the overall success of the company. it did not happen over night but it did happen, the goal was to find a middle ground where we all committed to a long-term strategy to rech our goals and engineering would try and stay open-minded to changes that would get us closer to those long-term goals.
- ryanjmo 16y agoI think generally the goal is by the time you have b-school types working in your start-up, you have built a strong core for your business, which shouldn't be changing that rapidly. However, it is good to be continually iterating looking for ways to expand or capitalize further on your core. If there is no core, established model behind what you are doing and you have a bunch of employees at the company (especially b-school types), I think it is reasonable to be concerned and perhaps consider other options available to you.
- damoncali 16y agoThat's normal, unless you really mean daily. The trick is to find a balance between agility and the focus required to build something useful. Too much agility and nothing gets done. Too much focus and the wrong things get done. Cut the marketing guys some slack - they're working with precious little information.
- petervandijck 16y ago1) no. 2) quit.
- bdickason 16y agoI've been in a situation like this before. Sales was driving and couldn't make up their minds. Either take a stand and fight for ONE strong direction (for at least a week!) or leave. The company won't be successful. "Pivot" means to plant one foot and move the other. Not to hop around like an idiot all day.
- apower 16y agoWhy are there so many sales and marketing folk in an early startup? Just 2 sales and 2 marketing guys and you burn half of million a year. Sales come in when there's a product to sell. If the product is still in early development (with the daily changes), the company has ramped up in the wrong order. It will run out of fund soon.
- staunch 16y ago18 Mistakes #5 "But openness to new ideas has to be tuned just right. Switching to a new idea every week will be equally fatal. Is there some kind of external test you can use? One is to ask whether the ideas represent some kind of progression. If in each new idea you're able to re-use most of what you built for the previous ones, then you're probably in a process that converges. Whereas if you keep restarting from scratch, that's a bad sign." http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
- AmberShah 16y agoThere is a big difference between keeping your options open and being agile versus "changing directions". I think it's very common to spend biz dev time on exploring other options, even in a way that can have a huge impact on your overall focus/product. Look at Groupon, they had a big focus, but spun off Groupon as a side project and it turned out to be huge. So exploring is a good/normal thing. However - that is not the same thing as rallying the troops with a "full steam ahead on this brand new idea" every day.