Venture Adventure

Recently, Roger Ehrenberg published his post mortem on his experiences with Monitor110.

Roger’s top-seven mistakes:

1. The lack of a single, “the buck stops here” leader until too late in the game
2. No separation between the technology organization and the product organization
3. Too much PR, too early
4. Too much money
5. Not close enough to the customer
6. Slow to adapt to market reality
7. Disagreement on strategy both within the Company and with the Board

There’s many things that can be discussed and learned by looking at the details of this list.  But when I look at it from a very high level, it all points to 2 major issues — A lack of planning and a lack of leadership.

“Battle is a highly fluid situation. You – You plan on your contingencies, and I have. You keep your initiative, and I will. But what you don’t do is share command. It’s never a good idea.” — Vic Deakins (John Travolta), Broken Arrow, 1996

And this, to me, is a symptom of the web 2.0 mentality of creating a business web-site based on a high concept pitch with no plan and no real leadership.  I guess when the VC is only investing a few hundred thousand dollars, it really doesn’t matter.

But real businesses have an idea of who their customers are, what the customer wants, what the customer is willing to pay, and how the business will make money.  And all of this is known before a single penny is spent.

And real leaders lead!

Edit 1: Fixed Typos

I’m stealing from the title of classic Burt Lancaster, Clark Gable movie, Run Silent Run Deep, because it (the title, not the movie) truly describes what I’ve been doing for the past month or so.

Specifically, I’ve not been writing because I’ve been having deep thoughts.  Not Earth Shattering, Ground Breaking, News-at-11 thoughts. More like over-thinking the problem thoughts.  I’ve been making this much harder than it should be, stressing about all the what-ifs and the hows: what if we need more people; how do we do …, what about ….  Ultimately, I’ve hit analysis paralysis.

This is unusual for me, because I usually follow Colin Powell’s rules of leadership – #15, Part I: “Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired.” Part II: “Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.”

In fact, I’m often guilty of complaining about others when they get in to analysis paralysis.  So it is with some shock that I finally recognize it in myself.  But like most problems, the first step is to recognize that you even have a problem.  And now thatI have, I can solve it simply and easily.  Stop thinking!

That’s actually not as dumb as it sounds.  I’ve taken about 2 weeks off, and haven’t thought about my projects at all (I’ve actually picked up a contract, but more on that later).  As a result, last night, and this morning, a bunch of stuff becamereally clear, and now I’m ready to get back on it and move forward with big steps.

And of course, I’m now in a writing mood again…