Organizations like many things in life follow the tenets of nature. At any given point in time they may flow or crash like water. Like many species, they are adapting, growing or decaying. If we look closely enough we can see machines in nature all around us at work by understanding first principles and root causes, dissecting cause and effect relationships, 2nd and 3rd order consequences that are direct correlations of its inputs, velocity and magnitude.
Humans are machines. We’re a bright spark whose flame can be fanned or put out. If we’re lucky, early on we have access to the proper nourishment necessary to feed our mind, body and soul. Our goal isn’t merely survival, but to live a quality life that’s meaningful with joy and purpose that is bigger than ourselves. Knowing our why is essential. Our longevity and quality of life depend on many things. Many inputs and outputs, and every collision in between both chaotic and controlled.
Take the human body. Inputs such as the environment and opportunities we’re born into (a function of luck) and what we decide to do with that luck or “unluck” thereafter, such as the folks we spend time with, the food we consume or don’t consume, and the decisions we make on how we choose to spend our time and leverage our opportunities all impact and compound our livelihoods based on their magnitude and velocity. Our bodies run on fuel and that comes in many forms – e.g. just take a look at the blue zones. Perhaps we feed it with more community, more sprouts and beans that diversify our microbiome, more sleep, more mindfulness, more learning, more peloton, more giving, and on and on. Finding the right inputs to focus on (what’s your most important thing?), how much to focus on them, and making sure all gears are running at the right speed will ensure the machine is running optimally. Too much of anything may poison you and too little may leave you malnourished. Like any machine, the ability to zoom in and then back out to be able to look at your machine from a 10k foot view and then a bird’s eye view is imperative to making sure all cylinders of the engine are running as you deliberately intended.
Startups are machines, with many interworking machines within the overarching machine. A startup’s culture, like our microbiome, is its operating system. It is perhaps the most enduring advantage a startup has aside from other advantages such as speed, technology and execution which are more easily replicated and short term. If the culture is compromised and becomes toxic, like antibiotics wiping out all the good bacteria, it needs to be replaced and replenished otherwise doomed in the end. Having a culture that’s reality based and clearly defined is essential.
Like any machine, the goal of a startup is to learn, iterate, grow and create enduring value with meaningful impact. To go from 0 to 1 to X. This evolution begins at the why stage: why us, why this, why now? Mike Maples has a great analogy for this insight development phase, where as a founder you need to think like a time traveler and get out of the present to see what’s missing in the future. At this stage, you’re posing a novel truth from the future not yet embraced by the present, and persuading folks to join a movement based on a future vision not yet realized. Strong founders like strong organizations and machines are like MacGyver, antifragile and strengthen through stress and disorder. If they get boxed into a corner, they figure a way out and come out better and smarter as a result.
As the startup matures, from insight to an adolescent, it enters the value development phase, aka the customer development where it needs to get out of the building to discover its truth through the scientific method of rapid experiments and lean methodologies, in order to validate its original insights and assumptions with the goal of finding product / market fit. Whether you define P/M fit as having > 40% of your customers respond they’d be “very disappointed” if they could no longer use your product or you simply feel that product / market fit is happening, you’ll transition into the growth phase. Before you make the jump though you need to validate that you’re servicing a real need. The goal here is to make sure you’re not skipping the compelling insight and value development phases and pouring fuel on fake growth. Like any organism or machine, you need a solid foundation to build off of so that it may grow efficiently and frictionlessly. Like Mr. Miagi said, “If roots strong, tree survive… Inside you have strong root… No need nothing except what inside you to grow.”
As you graduate from the value development phase, having persuaded a bunch of crusaders to join your mission against all odds, ventured through the idea maze and have customers who are desperately salivating for what you have to offer them, it’s time to shift into growth. And like any machine, there are many gears to growth. To effectively run a scalable, predictable machine, you must ensure you’re focused on the right gears / drivers that move the needle for your organization as well as making sure they’re well oiled (bottlenecks are removed to run frictionlessly at optimal speed). Making sure that critical gears such as acquisition (LTV/CAC, payback, distribution, etc..), engagement (how sticky is this), monetization (what’s our business model), and referrals (how likely will folks recommend this to others) are revving on all cylinders (at the right speed and the right time) will ultimately drive success or engine misfire.
Whether we’re analyzing the economic machine or the cause and effect relationship that climate change has on our world, machines are all around us. If you take a moment to observe the inputs and gears in action, you can often times see where we’re headed by looking to nature. Often times, nature tells us everything we need to know.
