Want to Start a Company? Stay as Ignorant as Possible
Forget cramming to learn your new
industry inside and out. When you're starting up, ignorance makes you more
creative, unique, and effective.
Maybe ignorance really is bliss. I
talk with entrepreneurs all the time who started their businesses without a
real understanding of what they were getting into. It sounds crazy, but I
actually think it may have been their single greatest asset.
Here's why it pays to know as little
as possible.
You're willing to take bigger risks,
with bigger rewards.
A little knowledge can make you
cautious--and hold you back. So often we're told that something isn't possible,
that we won't be successful or that our venture won't work because others have
failed. That's daunting. When you go into something new without lots of
knowledge about who was there before, you aren't held back by the way it was
approached before--by the standard way of doing things. That opens you up to
greater possibilities.
When I first started User Insight,
many in the research space told me that you "couldn't sell fixed price
research and there was no way to turn it into a process"--that it was too
risky to approach research that way. But I did it anyway. I turned research
into a repeatable process, enabling my company to bid business on a fixed price
basis anywhere in the world.
You bring fresh eyes.
If you have no experience in a
space, you create new approaches to a problem that others might not have
considered. You may bring something from another industry or experience to your
current situation that is more appropriate.
I listened a group of entrepreneurs
speak at a panel discussion the other night--one of them shared the experience
of bringing a product to market. She recalled the moment when she was on the
verge of signing off on the purchase of several hundred thousand dollars worth
of molds for a bottle to hold the product.
First, she decided to bring everyone
involved in the product's manufacturing process into one room and have them
talk her through it, from inception to delivery in the consumer's hands.
During this meeting, where she openly admitted to being the least
knowledgeable person in the room, they identified several breakpoints in the
process that would require major modifications to the molds she was ordering.
This half-day meeting saved her start-up hundreds of thousands of dollars in
mistakes.
The amazing thing--these industry
experts, each with about 25 years of experience, said it was the first such
meeting they had ever attended that took such a holistic look at the process
for a product. All because she was ignorant.
You ask stupid questions.
Entrepreneurs who are new to a space
ask questions to try to understand it. By having this outsider view, they can
see gaps and opportunities others "on the inside" don't see. As
newbies, they have permission to ask questions like "why do you do it that
way?" and, "have you ever thought of doing it this way?"
If you have a staff, encourage them
to ask the stupid questions when they first start with your company. If the
person answering the question can't provide a solid answer with a specific
reason, something might be broken: It might be a process or procedure to
reconsider. Those so-called stupid questions may end up lending you the unique
opportunity to be creative and solve a problem in a new and market-changing
way.
http://www.inc.com/eric-v-holtzclaw/want-to-start-a-company-stay-as-ignorant-as-possible.html?cid=em01020week08a&nav=su
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