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Startups Should Sing Out Of the Same Hymnal
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In the South where I was raised, folks learned the advantages of “singing from the same hymnal”. The phrase stems from a religious context, but applies to company behavior in startups. I use this adage when coaching our young company teams on how to best operate. Fundamentally, it means combining the unique skills of a startup team to optimize execution. It seems to me there are at least 3 ways to apply this adage to business – in words, actions and in timing. First, when the same hymnal is shared, words are consistent. It’s also apropos for a company– everyone needs to have this common vocabulary. It helps drive action. Alpha, beta and general availability releases mean different levels of robustness to different people. These definitions still need clarity among engineering, sales and marketing teams. Customer requirements also need to be consistently understood, making sure employees know whether something is mandatory for market penetration or simply a “nice to have.” A common vocabulary promotes group understanding and avoids wasted effort. Secondly, just as a shared musical score is important to good singing– -this score - or roadmap — is important in a company. It allows complex work to be coordinated in a harmonic fashion. Startup teams have to operate in an organized and complementary manner. The business concept must be fleshed out by detailed customer requirements. Technology possibilities have to be prioritized and dependencies identified. The skill sets needed in each organizational slot have to be identified to provide the capabilities of the execution phase. That’s what makes a score turn into beautiful music—or a company successful. Lastly, rhythm and pacing are required for efficient performance. Applied to a company, this means that a company must know when to move or wait. Engineering milestones drive sales and marketing behavior, but how does one group best dovetail with another? The company must have its various organizational components evolve in a systematic manner in sync with its growth timeline. Organizational rhythm is mandatory for success. My adage, “Singing from the same hymnal” has helped coalesce portfolio companies’ thoughts into action. That’s why I keep using it with my startup teams. Next they’ll hear that they need to move to the Church of Revenue Traction …. then worship at the Altar of Positive Cash Flow. It’s all about making a company successful. Randy is a Managing Director at Claremont Creek Ventures, bringing more than 25 years of technology industry experience as a senior general manager and venture investor to the group. Randy invests in Information Technology and has a special interest in Sensor Networks and Security. In the years prior to co-founding Claremont Creek Ventures, Randy was a General Partner at Novus Ventures and a Venture Partner at Horizon Ventures. Most Commented Posts |
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August 2nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
[...] Startups Should Sing Out Of the Same Hymnal by Claremont Creek Alerts on August 2nd, 2010 August 2, 2010 source peHUB [...]
August 3rd, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Randy,
I agree fully with your entire statement but for the moment wish to extol the wisdom of the “common vocabulary”. It is particularly critical that everyone in the company, not just the technologists, understand what it is that they do, what the goals are, what the customer hears, and what part of that message rings the cash register. Twelve years ago I created a B2B Internet application and community for the building industry and over two years grew the company to include 170 employees. In between growth spurts when I could sit down and listen to each of them describe for me what it is that we did, I was surprised to learn that only about fifteen of them had it right. If my CRM force had such a loose and un-constructed understanding of our core competence then the customer was happening only by accident and we were over-achieving for some and underachieving for others. My answer was a series of marketing charettes in which we aligned employee understanding, witnessed the birth of a few stars, and wrote a company lexicon of about ten pages which then became a living document adjusted for every market and technology change. Everyone go ton the same page!
In a perfect world everyone in the company should be able to give the elevator pitch as convincingly as the founder group, but entrepreneurs often reserve this special understanding for themselves. Big mistake! Give everyone a great expectation to live up to, a sense of belonging in the continuum, and most often they surprise you.
August 13th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Amen, Don. I couldn’t agree more!
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