Week 3 – MBA6101 – Ascend Your Start-up

There's a Kenny Rogers song, "The Gambler" (yes, I am that old), that embodies what Yu is articulating in Ascend Your Start-Up's chapter 3. 

The Gambler chorus lyrics (© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC | songwriter: Don Schlitz)

"You've got to know when to hold 'em

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away

And know when to run

You never count your money

When you're sittin' at the table

There'll be time enough for countin'

When the dealin's done"

Yu advises that "moving product to market is a precarious, slippery slope, and the most likely camp to bring a company down". Some other salient points she makes:

• sometimes you cannot take the time to wait and undergo a full decision process
• sometimes [founders] are tempted to stop listening and appreciating experienced people; the mistake they make after raising money is hiring friends & family
• once you grow to $50MM, you may stall, not realizing you could actually scale to $200MM the nexts three years...you start raising more funds
• sometimes, the people who begin the start-up journey don't stay with you...you must make a decision as to whether you leave those people behind

She is spot-on when she says that "in order to scale faster and more fearlessly, you must think big. Think category. What is the minimal viable category you are entering?" 

Here's a category: household cleaning.

"The Swiffer came into existence after Continuum researchers videotaped people cleaning their homes and realized just how much people hated touching dirty mops. They also realized that most dirt in the home is primarily dust that could be picked up electrostatically." (Woolhouse, 2016). "Continuum [Procter & Gamble's design consultancy agency], pondered two key consumer points: How do they interact with current products on the market? and What challenges do they have with the current offerings? If you can find those answers, you can find the right problem, which can lead to the right product. It’s the same case for startups." (Baer, 2013). Read the case study, success story, and P&G's own take on the innovation being a game-changer. By the way, P&G is #54 (in 2021) in Fortune's 500 and is the world's largest CPG company in the world. Apply those principles to start-ups and scale faster.

References:

Baer, D. (2013, March 11). The Innovation Method Behind Swiffer Madness. https://www.fastcompany.com/3006797/innovation-method-behind-swiffer-madness

Woolhouse, M. (2016, March 22). In Swiffer, a pet project that went big. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/22/product-development-race-goes-swiffer/ddjA1UKErXX33B2Vx1rdsJ/story.html