Steve Blank: I’ve seen the Promised Land. And I might not get there with you.

http://steveblank.com/2010/01/21/i%e2%80%99ve-seen-the-promised-land-and-i-might-not-get-there-with-you/

by stakent • 17 years ago

59 15 17 years ago

grellas• 17 years ago

Essentially an argument for professional management that is seen as critical for a high-growth startup's transition from its formative stages to what might be called a "real company."

It is easy to stumble along this path but the highest risk of doing so, in my experience, comes from a premature bringing in of serial executives (e.g., a "real CEO") who inject so much "process" that the company loses its vision and sinks of the weight of its own burn rate ("process kills" might be the epitaph for such companies). This, by the way, is why a far higher proportion of early-stage startups today will try to defer VC funding for as long as reasonably possible if their business model permits it. Call it short-sighted if you will, but I think most founders strongly prefer not to be on the receiving end of this sort of transitional conduct.

As usual from this author, many good insights about the key issues, whether or not one agrees with him on all particulars.

wavesplash• 17 years ago

I read it differently.

To me Steve seems to be saying "if you want to avoid getting replaced, you need to learn to scale your skills for each stage of the company". Managing 20 is a very different problem than managing 300.

Having lived through that transition once as an early employee of a startup that made it, Steve pretty much nails the issues we faced on the head. In the case of that startup the founder didn't scale and needed to be replaced much sooner than it happened.

I would have preferred it if the founder did scale better. Managing around your founder for his own good is some of the most soul draining work ever created.

rauljara• 17 years ago

I'm sorry, but comparing an entrepreneur who has to leave a company before he gets rich to a civil rights leader who gets murdered before his children are recognized as fully human and equal members of society by his government is pretty damn tone death. There is no comparison. That epigraph shouldn't be there, and that post shouldn't have that title.

paulbaumgart2• 17 years ago

He did attribute it to MLK, but ultimately it's a biblical reference (Moses & crossing the Jordan River). Those are usually OK in a variety of contexts.

microcentury• 17 years ago

It may originally come from the Bible, but that line is indelibly linked with MLK. I agree with rauljara - that headline is tone-deaf and tacky, though the article itself is well-written and informative.

DanielBMarkham• 17 years ago

I agree with the gist of this, although grellas makes a great point about shooting yourself in the foot by looking for "big" CEO qualities too soon.

But I can't help but note the irony here, which is thick. You manage to beat out 100 of your peers and actually start a company. Then you manage to beat out the 20 other guys who started a company and make something that will grow. You fight tooth and nail 24/7 against all odds to make this happen.

So what do you get? Sacked by the very people that invested in you! The guys who are basically just getting lucky by hitting their 1-in-20 shot are now the experts on what it takes to scale and bub, you're not in the mix.

I'm not saying it's not the right choice sometimes, I'm saying that life really sucks bigtime if you go through all of that and then get the axe right as it's all going to happen.

The more I learn about startups the more I've come to realize that it's a fool's game. If you win you lose, if you get funding it's probably for the wrong reasons, and if you manage to listen to your inner voice and deliver a vision you're more likely to be called a fool than a genius.

Damn I love startups.

revorad• 17 years ago

I like Mark Pincus's take on corporate control - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0lUNFHD-iM&feature=relat...

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2310

In this clip - http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2310 - he says startups should be building a platform to test out many ideas in their chosen domain instead of just one. I think this is a good parallel to the VC's 1-in-20 shot. We need to learn to hedge our bets too.

sruffell• 17 years ago

I first came across an argument very similar to this in "Pro Excel Financial Modeling: Building Models for Technology Startups"[1]. There the author makes an argument for why you should address the qualities needed in leaders of different size organizations in your models.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Excel-Financial-Modeling-Technolog...

gyardley• 17 years ago

Professional management is often necessary, and I think most founders recognize this. However, bringing on a CEO is an enormously risky proposition for founders. No matter how thoroughly you vet him, this guy's going to be your boss and he could potentially run your just-starting-to-pop startup into the ground, leaving you with nothing for your efforts.

There would be a lot less anxiety and acrimony over this critical transition time if investors recognized the risks involved for the startup founders and offered them the opportunity to limit their downside by taking a modest amount of cash out. After all, getting to the point where the startup is starting to scale nicely is still a relatively rare achievement.

staunch• 17 years ago

Not that there aren't times when a founder needs to get ejected, but I think it happens about 10x as many times as it is good for the company.

The boards at these companies are too often like the group of senators that killed Julius Caesar. Nominally trying to save the state/company, but really just interested in their own power, and almost always the true bringers of chaos and destruction.

skmurphy• 17 years ago

I think he offers an excellent framework for the three kinds of leaders necessary for a startup to scale from idea to major company. Some entrepreneurs have the ability to lead at more than one stage of the company, some try and fail, and the rest are not given the chance.

This reminds me of a story a successful serial entrepreneur told me a few years ago (I blogged about it at http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2006/12/21/two-images-of-startu... ) An avid cyclist, he thought of the entrepreneurial journey with a VC as having two distinct phases: in the pack and near the finish line.

   Working with VC’s is like a bicycle race. At first you are all in 
   the pack and everyone works together, alternating position to 
   draft and move faster together than the solo leaders.

   But as the finish line appears the pack breaks up as each cyclist 
   tries to cross it first. Even if the VC’s have been good partners 
   for most of the journey, they can’t resist the temptation 
   to break away and gain the advantage at the finish line.

azeemazhar2• 17 years ago

Yeah completely agree. As a startup founder, I know what I am good at. I also know that it isn't yet the time to bring the 'mainstream management' on board. I have to eliminate the risk and create a business based on some defensive position and repeatable customer sales proposition.

In short take us somewhere unambiguous to then hand the reins over.

joshu• 17 years ago

leadership and management are orthogonal.

tjmc• 17 years ago

What happened to Martin Eberhard at Tesla could be a case study for this post.

Steve Blank: I’ve seen the Promised Land. And I might not get there with you.

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