Mind-expanding

So this week I’ve been trying to step back from the detail and the smug delirium of moving Trello tickets from Doing to Done.  I’ve been trying to be the leader Familiarize needs right now to guide the team, find customers and position the company for investment.

And it’s been blinking hard.  In fact I’ve had what feels like a really unproductive week.

It’s not a whole lot different from a typical week at bp! Or maybe that was just me.

While stepping back from the detail, I realised early on that what I needed wasn’t a strategy, it was a vision.  I didn’t have a picture in my head where I thought Familiarize was heading – or even could head.

When I first had the idea for the business I remember getting all carried away with what it could be (I might have even mentioned the metaverse, good grief).  But as soon as I started building, I buried such lofty ambitions away, instead getting my head down.  Just allowing myself brief spells to join dots on what different customers told me and adjusting course.

Enter once more the laboured sailing analogy: whilst I’ve sort of got tacking and gybing (without capsizing) and a cursory appreciation of wind speed and direction, I’m utterly clueless when it comes to the boat’s destination.

But as I said, Familiarize now needs it.  For three reasons:

1. Now I’ve got a team that started building what I’ve designed, I need to design the next part – so I have to look up and have some idea where we’re going.

2. Now I’ve got a team, I need to keep them motivated, challenged and excited about our mission.  Plus co-developing vision creates shared ownership.

3. I need to find funding - and investors buy a vision, not an MVP.

Building a vision is hard to do in front of a screen.  It’s hard to do inside. And on your own.  So this week I’ve got out more, below some big skies, with the beautiful Autumn light. I also went into London to meet some people and walked the streets absorbing the city’s energy.

And gradually I’ve felt my mind expand.  At first unwillingly, and then I let go and began to really imagine what Familiarize could be. How it could help more businesses solve problems.  Maybe thousands.

I’ve been looking through the application forms of one of the accelerators with funding.   One question really helped: How big is the market? Walk us through how there will be a $10B player in this market.

I say '“helped”; it paralysed me at first.  But gradually I let my mind wander to answer this question.  And after a bit, I did answer it (well I got to >$1B which was good enough).  And it unlocked my thinking, suddenly making everything bigger.  And more colourful and exciting.  Like one of those meditation visualisations.

And something even weirder happened. It’s like it opened Pandora’s Box and now I can’t not think about that vision.  I can’t not now imagine Familiarize without that future.

Of course there’s a whole load of other futures it could also have, some of which may not be so wildly successful. But that’s where strategy comes in.  And that’s for another time.

Meanwhile, here’s some ideas to help you get a better balance in your life between vision and execution, than I’ve been getting:

1. Customer interactions are great opportunities to develop and test vision – as well as gather inputs.  Encourage your customers to help co-develop your vision.

2. Execution is so important in a startup, but make time, maybe once a quarter, to take yourself off and think big about your business.

3. Don’t get hung up on the ‘how’, just focus on the ‘what’. I think I’ve killed several potential visions for Familiarize by writing myself off because there’s no obvious or immediate way to deliver them.

4. When I was developing my vision, a few concepts helped stretch my thinking. See if these help expand your vision: Flywheel, Moat, Purpose, Customer value, Sustainability, Differentiation.

5. Write your vision on a piece of dog-eared paper, a post-it, a note on your phone; in otherwise don’t commit your vision to a stone tablet. At least not yet.  It’s a work in progress, a line in the sand. And if, after a month you look at it and still love it, still get excited by it, and still get scared by it, maybe it’s the one.  And if not, tweak it or write another.

Writing visions and strategies and plans came pretty easily to me in bp.  Probably because they were never really mine.  I suspect that’s why thinking about Familiarize’s vision has been so much tougher, because I’m on the hook.

And that is a bit terrifying.  There’s no safety net like in bp.  No-one else I can blame.  But equally there’s no ceiling either.

I’m not sure which is more terrifying!