brewery33

Long live startups

Business is a definite roller coaster, especially when you do business with your family. Business has grown over the years and we have expanded. This expansion has created a sense of safety that what we have will never go away. This safety is a detriment to our future. We will never innovate or take chances when we are safe.

Om Malik has a great little newsletter called Om Says (BTW you should subscribe if you don’t already). In today’s installment he talks about when a company is dead. He waxes that companies are dead when they can’t stop the talent from leaking and taking all of the intellectual steam with them. This is very true.

Wired magazine has a feature this month regarding Larry Page taking the helm of Google as CEO. In the article Wired talks about the innovation and speed at which Page likes to move. This is interesting since Page is assuming the reigns of one the world’s largest companies. What comes with size is bureaucracy.

What I am getting at here is that the startup mentality is back. The aggressive and risk averse environment that is the early stages of successful companies is coming back en vogue. Big bureaucratic behemoths are beginning to adopt this nimble style. While the startup mentality never left the Silicon Valley, it did leave Main Street America.

It is kind of like when the hot girl from high school shows up to the reunion fat. She didn’t lose her hotness, she just got fat. She can work out and reclaim that fire that she used to wield, but she has to shed the weight that is keeping her from achieving just that. At least she knows what it tastes like. She just tasted it too much.

I am excited that my organization is making us do more with less. The collective will now be forced to be productive or become extinct. No longer will mediocrity be accepted. Our backs are up against the wall and I love the feeling. I feel like I am looking down the barrel of a loaded gun from the business reaper and giving a cynical grin.

Long live the startup.