Fact: Startups are starting faster than ever before.
\nFact: Startups are disappearing faster than ever before.<\/p>\n
While they never told us that directly, this second fact was likely the reason why a couple of the cofounders from a new startup recently reached out to us. Not long into our first chat, they asked, “What would you suggest we do to make our startup last?”<\/p>\n
Our short answer: Invest in some old ideas.<\/strong><\/p>\n “Old ideas? Are your serious? What kind of old ideas?” they asked.<\/p>\n The mother-nature kind. Mother nature has been in the business of life and death for longer than any human-made thing. So, where better to turn for advice on longevity?<\/p>\n Let’s continue by stating a few more obvious things.<\/p>\n Successful businesses are identical to successful biological species in an important way: Both are highly adaptive organisms.<\/p>\n (This is why we feel that more business owners should start thinking about businesses biologically. Thinking biologically simply means that you should seek to understand how successful life forms work.)<\/p>\n Back to startups: when you take a step back and look at famous startups, more often than not, you’ll notice that they think and act biologically.<\/p>\n This is due, in part, to the fact that, in its early days, a startup tends to lack the resources to shape its environment through brute force of innovation and\/or marketing. Instead, they have to think modestly and subtly about when and how they can shape (rather than control) their surroundings.<\/p>\n You see, contrary to popular belief, most famous startups don’t really disrupt. They embed themselves or nest into the existing ecosystem. Consider these three startups: Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook.<\/p>\n Airbnb nested itself into the existing capacity of rental rooms, condos, etc.<\/p>\n Uber nested itself into the existing supply of cars and drivers.<\/p>\n Facebook started by nesting itself among university students. At a single university. By modestly offering, to those students, to be a small brush in the creation of their self-portraits.<\/p>\n As your time is precious, let’s wrap this up with one last reason why you should think biologically if you wish to build a startup that just might last.<\/p>\n “What’s that?”<\/p>\n When all of us have so many choices at our fingertips, the most important thing in selecting a you-name-it isn’t necessarily the technical aspects of how it works. Rather, it’s how you feel about it.<\/p>\n To breathe life and to make things that people love, you need to return to nature once again. The best designs in nature are simple (takeaway: refrain from adding what is not absolutely necessary), subtle (takeaway: limit everything to just enough and leave something to the imagination), and, finally, they tend to work without pretense.<\/p>\n “This s*** makes sense. When can you start?” said those brave and open-minded cofounders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fact: Startups are starting faster than ever before. Fact: Startups are disappearing faster than ever before. While they never told us that directly, this second fact was likely the reason why a couple of the cofounders from a new startup recently reached out to us. Not long into our first chat, they asked, “What would … Continue reading “How can we make our startup last?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-11-at-5.33.37-PM.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7LRlm-1n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/89"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krisp.ca\/mobile\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}