Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

At the Pioneers Festival, in Vienna, I had the chance to listen to Dave McClure’s talk. Let me start of by saying that I respect Dave, and everything that he’s done. His startup metrics for Pirates have been a definitive guide for my work with Zeppelin (now Databox).

But, at Pioneers, the attitude on stage is the epitome of everything I hate about the startup world. There was talk about engineers resting on the shoulders of giants, such as Mark Zuckerberg et al. It all sounded very condescending. Sort of like: “thank the lord for an opportunity to even have a startup”.

The God Symptom

And that’s basically the gist of it. A lot of these startup folk believe they are God. That what they are doing is the only thing that can, and will change the world. Think of it as Job’s famous reality distortion field, but extended, and without much merit.

The problem with this is that this often distorts the reality so much, that even the founders are oblivious to the truth. Sure, fake it till you make it sounds OK, but the reality of that is, people lie. I’m not saying everyone lies, nor am I accusing anyone specific of lying. I came in contact with several startups that I know talked different metrics with investors, sold high numbers, even talked different valuations.

What happens is that these people believe that their way is the only possible way.

Startup Way or the Highway

I worked in startups, as well as in “normal” companies. When I say normal, I mean companies with established departments, financial flows, processes, etc. I did an internship at a government institution, so I am no stranger to the bureaucracies that go on in those places either. At each of these places, what struck me, was that they could each benefit from some aspects of the other.

At startups, people often think that, the startup way is the only way. Things need to move fast, agile, cost-effective. But on the other hand, they quickly lose track of time, quality and even employees. In the enterprise however, often things really do take a long time, and it would be beneficial for some to move faster, more agile if you will.

The sad part is, that I have seen more enterprises that are willing to change and embrace all that has been learnt. Startups are often so entranched in their own way that they will never accept learnings from others.

Recently I was speaking at a local developers user group about some of the patterns that help us design (web) applications in an agile way — that we can quickly and efficiently change them to suit the clients and changing requests that are ever so common today.

One remark I heard was: “This is contrary to Agile teachings”. That is not true. Taking time to plan ahead and figure some things out (like architecture) is not contrary to anything but a very narrow minded thinking.

Agile teaches us to embrace change. It does not teach us to be reckless.

When I joined SAOP recently, as a Software Architect, I have been given a certain amount of freedom implementing the process I wanted for my team. They accepted that a lot of the lessons I learned at startups apply. And on the other hand, a lot of lessons they had learned, also apply. So instead of jumping on one ship, we sat down, and discussed both options and picked the one that we knew will help us be the most productive whilst still maitaining a certain amount of control necessary with a company of more than 5 employees (SAOP’s headcount is at 50+).

Have an Open Mind

If you are running a company, be it a startup or an enterprise, have an open mind. Look outside the box of your company and your experience for what others have done. For example, there is an amazing framework for Agile implementations in enterprise, called SAFE. Why not read through it, and apply best practices?

If you run a startup, listen to people from the enterprise world. Chances are they’ve done things consistently, and well, for several years, while you are doing this for the first time. If you are selling to the enterprise, and reading this, thinking I’m full of shit, read through it again. Rinse, repeat. I still cannot fathom why people are so stubborn. I have actually seen entrepreneurs who sell to enterprise customers reject their ways and then be shocked that the decision process on the other side will (1) take too long, or (2) go for another bigger company, because their process is closer to what the client wants. No shit?

There are exceptions…

Having written all that, I want to make a specific point. During my time at TechStars, with Zeppelin, I met people who are the exact opposite of everything I’ve written about. Some of the most prominent examples are our direct mentors, Katie Rae, Reed Sturtevant and Bob Mason. There are others, who are always willing to learn, regardless of their success in life. And that is what we must all strive towards.

No matter how successful we are, we can always be better. Let’s step outside the box, and learn from each other.