Startup Adaptability, Unlearning and Dealing with Uncertainty

Startup Adaptability: This is from a brilliant Ted Talk by Natalie Fratto on an investor’s perspective about the qualities of an entrepreneur. Most successful entrepreneur traits are perseverance, vision, communication, leadership, etc. In this article, I’ll focus on adaptability, managing change and uncertainty in a startup.

For a detailed analysis of characteristics of an entrepreneur, please refer to the earlier article. Without much wait, lets dive straight into the Ted talk on startup adaptability and unlearning.

Without much ado, presenting a nice Ted Talk from Natalie Fratto on improving adaptability.

The key highlights for me from this ted talk are:

Startup Adaptability – Being comfortable with change

One o the most powerful traits for an entrepreneur is to respond to change. Change is the most certain thing in a startup world. Plans will only give you an indication. I can assure that almost always these plans fail. But they give you an opportunity to test various hypothesis and adapt better.

As the Ted talk indicates, one of the key traits of an entrepreneur is the ability to reach to change. An investor is likely to question you about your learnings and how well you’ve adapted. The business environment is dynamic and hence prone to constant challenges. The best thing an entrepreneur can do is maintain his/her composure and focus on using the situation.

Some examples of changes for a founder are:

• The market might ask you to pivot.
• You may have to change suppliers, business model and even the selling model
• The business plan can see hundreds of changes not only for funding but also for operations.

Of all the business plans I have done and seen being done, I can easily state with authority that it is going to change. After all, the startup journey is about the end result rather than sticking to only one mode of operation.

Unlearning: Selectively taking feedback from market/customers

Coming from either a corporate/student world – things are a lot more structured. Sales deals and marketing conversations are more straight forward. Startups can sometimes bring you to your knees. These are the scenarios where you probably have to unlearn about how things work and adapt accordingly.

I can see that I am going back to the previous point about adaptability in a startup. But that’s pretty much the truth. Every experience either teaches to unlearn/ learn something new. It keeps coming back to taking feedback from the customer/market.

This can very well apply to your product development/ marketing strategy or even your pricing model. As a startup, your ability to call the shots are far more limited and you would be pushed to be selective about the things you can give up.

Startup Uncertainty: This is the name of the game

These experiences and the write up summarize my startup world. I can be fairly certain that this is not the universal truth. In fact other founders have different experiences, but they can all agree on the levels of uncertainty a startup can bring.

The purpose of this article is not to faze you away from startups. It is about being honest and open. Although startup is a wonderful dream to pursue, it is not without its risks

This doesn’t mean that you cannot take risks. You must absolutely take them for the things that are important to you. But what you cannot do is – ignore and turn a blind eye towards them. After all, your time is the most precious thing and you cannot be kidding yourself with the lies that don’t help you.