The Land of the Living Dead
by Yasushi Kusume
'In Silicon Valley, we call this experience getting stuck in the land of the living dead. It happens when a company has achieved a modicum of success – just enough to stay alive – but is not living up to the expectation of its founders and investors. Such companies are a terrible drain of human energy.'
The Lean Startup, Eric Ries
Eric Ries' book, The Lean Startup, discusses that challenging moment many entrepreneurs face – what to do when your product is just barely surviving. It’s a critical time, one when you need to figure out whether to change direction (pivot) or keep going with your current approach (persevere) to create a successful product.
Eric emphasizes that a pivot is not a random change; it's a purposeful shift in a product, business model, or growth strategy. It’s a move designed to help your company adapt to mistakes, and recover from them, by finding a better path. It’s not always an easy process though.
3 pitfalls
Pivoting requires making the right decisions at the right time. But it also has to be based on an honest evaluation of your progress and future prospects. Ries sees three possible pitfalls for anyone attempting such a shift.
- Vanity metrics
Don't rely on superficial numbers that make you think you're doing well when you're not. They can lead to false conclusions.
- Unclear goals
If your goals and expectations aren’t clear, you won't recognize failure, and without recognizing failure, you can't make the radical changes a pivot requires.
- False high spirits
Avoiding failure to keep your team's morale up is a mistake. Acknowledging mistakes is crucial for growth.
It may be tough to admit your current approach isn't working, but it's essential if you want to analyse what went wrong and take action to correct it. You need to embrace your mistakes
Embracing mistakes
In his book, Think Again, Adam Grant suggests a method for handling the emotional discomfort of making mistakes. He believes you need to enjoy the process of discovering your errors by detaching yourself from your past beliefs and embracing the idea of growth. You need to separate.
- Separate your past and present self
If you look back and don't think you were foolish a year ago, you haven't learned anything. To grow, you should always be looking for areas to improve.
- Separate belief from identity
Your identity should be based on your company values, not your personal beliefs. Be open to expanding your knowledge and changing your thinking to broaden your horizons.
Fail fast
Many businesses say they like the ‘fail fast’ concept but not all of them make full and proper use of it. It uses aggressive trial-and-error tactics to assess the long-term viability of a product and, if it’s found wanting, demands that the business cuts it losses and moves on, instead of continuing to invest in a doomed approach. This pivotal moment, when you decide to change or stay the course, is the essence of the Lean Startup methodology.
Reis offers the following tips for successful pivots.
- Set a timeframe
Determine how much time you’ll allow for your business to succeed, or fail. This will help you determine how many pivots you can attempt.
- Schedule ‘pivot periods’
Plan your pivots in advance, so your employees know when they’re due. This will reduce any ‘emotional’ resistance to change and allow for helpful, structured reviews.
Failure is essential
For Reis, entrepreneurship involves vision, intuition, and judgment – human qualities that cannot, and should not, ever be removed from the process. The key takeaway is that we should learn to embrace and cherish failure because it provides opportunities for learning. As he puts it: ‘failure is a prerequisite of learning’.