A month ago I posted a blog on the value of jumping into the marketplace with a new venture. You can read it here. In it I espoused the value of not waiting until you have everything just so before you push your venture into the marketplace. I believe that to be true. However, I got a couple of comments to that post to which I want to respond. If you go to read that past blog, make sure to read the insightful comments.
First of all, Jeff Hoffman posted a comment that gave me pause and prompted me to think about what I had written. Jeff wrote "I can understand what you're saying. The key is knowing WHEN to jump. Crossing every T and doting every I is one thing and starting too soon with too many holes unaddressed in your plan is another. I've seen too many people crash and burn on business ventures because they weren't ready either emotionally or financially and figured they could "wing it" because they didn't have someone to whisper to them "not yet, what about this?" or chose to ignore them."
Jeff is absolutely right. He goes on to espouse the benefits of working collaboratively with a group of people. The more people you have looking over things, questioning assumptions, ground truthing plans and adding their skills and perspectives to the effort, the better off you are. Implicit in this is that the more varied your group is, in terms of expertise, level of experience, background, etc. the better off you will be.
Having a team is essential. It is essential to getting things ready to enter the marketplace and it is even more essential to weathering the ups and downs of the marketplace that every start-up eventually goes through. Many wiser and more experienced voices than mine tout the importance of developing a team as part of a entrepreneurial adventure. Starting your own company does not mean starting a company alone!
The other comment I got was from Emily Mooney. I have the pleasure of knowing Emily and her husband and business partner Todd. Their venture, a creative media company called Mooney Media, is exactly the type of venture I had in mind in my initial comments. They are versatile, creative and able to react quickly to the market opportunities that come their way. Apparently, from Emily's comment, being in the market early has provided them with more advantages than not.
The answer, it seems, is to walk the razor's edge between being overly cautious about jumping into the market and overly frivolous about preparations before you enter. And listen when someone like Jeff is kind enough to whisper in your year "what about this?"
