{"id":16186,"date":"2024-04-17T08:09:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T06:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/?p=16186"},"modified":"2024-07-22T13:27:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T11:27:41","slug":"bmt-venture-insights-1-24-the-need-for-speed-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/insights\/bmt-venture-insights-1-24-the-need-for-speed-2\/","title":{"rendered":"bm|t Venture Insights 1\/24: The Need for Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The famous line \u201cI feel the need, the need for speed\u201d was spo\u00adken in a very cav\u00ada\u00adlier and risk-ori\u00adented way in the movie Top Gun. How\u00adever, for star\u00adtups it is often the case that speed actu\u00adally reduces risk and greatly increases the prob\u00ada\u00adbil\u00adity of ulti\u00admate suc\u00adcess <\/strong>.<\/p>\n

We recently viewed a video show\u00ading a car trav\u00adel\u00ading at var\u00adi\u00adous speeds over a large pot\u00adhole. At the slow\u00adest speed of 30km\/h the car was severely jolted, dam\u00adaged and nearly flipped on its side. At increas\u00ading speeds, the dam\u00adage was actu\u00adally reduced and at 120km\/h the car sailed over the pot\u00adhole with barely a notice\u00adable shim\u00admer. We rec\u00adog\u00adnized an impor\u00adtant anal\u00adogy to star\u00adtups and their need to attain a cer\u00adtain speed to suc\u00adcess\u00adfully tra\u00adverse all the dan\u00adgers than can befall a young company.<\/p>\n

Fore\u00admost, we often observe that star\u00adtups which move quickly gen\u00ader\u00adate sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcantly more oppor\u00adtu\u00adni\u00adties<\/strong> than those that are dri\u00adving in an overly cau\u00adtious man\u00adner. If a startup only has so much time on the road and it does not know at which high\u00adway exit it will find its next big oppor\u00adtu\u00adnity, it is log\u00adi\u00adcal that the more exits the startup reaches, the higher the like\u00adli\u00adhood of achiev\u00ading suc\u00adcess (or at least the next impor\u00adtant mile\u00adstone on the journey).<\/p>\n

One clas\u00adsic hin\u00addrance to speed occurs when a startup spends an inor\u00addi\u00adnate amount of time and energy on a sin\u00adgle project for a large cus\u00adtomer. These seem\u00adingly flat\u00adter\u00ading projects can often be pot\u00adholes in dis\u00adguise, and if a startup works through the project too slowly (per\u00adhaps by exten\u00adsively cus\u00adtomiz\u00ading its core offer\u00ading to meet the needs of this one client) it can veer off its path, miss other valu\u00adable oppor\u00adtu\u00adni\u00adties, and, con\u00adse\u00adquently, suf\u00adfer exten\u00adsive damage.<\/p>\n

A clas\u00adsic ana\u00adlog of this hin\u00addrance is a startup work\u00ading too long on its ini\u00adtial prod\u00aduct<\/strong> before putting it in cus\u00adtomers\u2019 hands and receiv\u00ading feed\u00adback. The slow work to per\u00adfect the prod\u00aduct prior to (beta)launch is much more dam\u00adag\u00ading to the com\u00adpany than receiv\u00ading dis\u00adsat\u00adis\u00adfied early reviews of an MVP, which are incred\u00adi\u00adbly valu\u00adable to a startup and can help guide it into the fast lane.<\/p>\n

Another com\u00admon way in which star\u00adtups often need to move faster is with their per\u00adson\u00adnel deci\u00adsion-mak\u00ading. Instead of expend\u00ading too much time try\u00ading to improve employ\u00adees who do not fit well, star\u00adtups gen\u00ader\u00adally need to sep\u00ada\u00adrate from under\u00adper\u00adform\u00ading employ\u00adees more quickly and should expect to test mul\u00adti\u00adple peo\u00adple in order to sus\u00adtain\u00adably fill roles. Often star\u00adtups try to reduce the risk of being slowed down by wrong hires by screen\u00ading more restric\u00adtively; how\u00adever, in a tal\u00adent-con\u00adstrained envi\u00adron\u00adment, this approach also pre\u00advents star\u00adtups from attain\u00ading the veloc\u00adity needed to power for\u00adward and effec\u00adtively cruise over problems.<\/p>\n

Cen\u00adtral to all the above exam\u00adples (and many more that are not listed) are the ben\u00ade\u00adfits of the men\u00adtal\u00adity that comes with dri\u00adving faster. When dri\u00adving faster, one must be more alert and there is no time to waste on annoy\u00ading issues which, if focused upon, dis\u00adtract from the mission. <\/strong><\/p>\n

As ven\u00adture investors, we want com\u00adpa\u00adnies to use our invest\u00adment to move fast, increas\u00ading their chances of suc\u00adcess. We pre\u00adfer to invest addi\u00adtional funds in the impor\u00adtant shifts, turns and piv\u00adots that are iden\u00adti\u00adfied through valu\u00adable feed\u00adback along the jour\u00adney rather than to pay for a final coat of paint on a car that is still in the garage.<\/p>\n

Your bm|t Team<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The famous line \u201cI feel the need, the need for speed\u201d was spo\u00adken in a very cav\u00ada\u00adlier and risk-ori\u00adented way in the movie Top Gun. How\u00adever, for star\u00adtups it is often the case that speed actu\u00adally reduces risk and greatly increases the prob\u00ada\u00adbil\u00adity of ulti\u00admate suc\u00adcess . We recently viewed a video show\u00ading a car [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,250],"tags":[253],"class_list":["post-16186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2024-en","category-insights","tag-insights-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bm-t.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}