A her­cu­lean effort is requi­red for a young com­pany to break into an estab­lished mar­ket with a new product/service/solution or to estab­lish a new mar­ket altog­e­ther (per­haps even toug­her). Thus, the rewards for those extreme efforts must be immense, and the rewards are only immense for truly win­ning.

In our view, play­ing to win requi­res having a win­ning vision, taking risks to rea­lize that vision, and being honest enough to know when the path and/or vision needs to be modified.

First, having a win­ning vision means ensu­ring that the company’s goal is one that is com­pel­ling and lucra­tive enough to pur­sue with full com­mit­ment. Having a wort­hwhile and inspi­ring “rai­son d’être” gives a com­pany count­less advan­ta­ges: talen­ted employees wan­ting to join, inves­tors see­ing what is pos­si­ble, and part­ners being moti­va­ted to work tog­e­ther on excel­lent terms, to name just a few essen­tial ones.

We have rarely seen big “wins” when foun­ders sim­ply are engros­sed in their tech­no­logy wit­hout an inspi­ring vision of how the tech­no­logy can create mas­sive posi­tive change in the world.

Secondly, play­ing to win requi­res both foun­ders and ven­ture inves­tors making a true com­mit­ment to taking the risks that are neces­sary to pro­vide a chance to win. Alt­hough this con­cept might sound obvious, it is often dif­fi­cult in prac­tice, pre­do­mi­nantly because it often requi­res relin­quis­hing con­trol. For exam­ple, this can mean inves­t­ing more capi­tal than ori­gi­nally plan­ned when an oppor­tu­nity is spot­ted, making a trans­for­ma­tio­nal addi­tion to the team, enga­ging in a part­ner­ship, or the acqui­si­tion of a com­ple­men­tary com­pany. And it cer­tainly means foun­ders and ven­ture inves­tors can­not sit back and wait for suc­cess to come to them and can­not be con­ten­ted with minor con­fir­ma­ti­ons that they are on the right path – they also have to find ways to sprint down that path.

Finally, while sprin­ting down this path, play­ing to win also requi­res per­se­ver­ance to carry on and being bru­t­ally self-honest about whe­ther or not one is still on the right path. Ulti­m­ately it is bet­ter to suf­fer dis­ap­poin­ting set­backs on the road to vic­tory than to expe­ri­ence plea­sing “suc­ces­ses” on a road to nowhere. Com­pa­nies and inves­tors need to con­ti­nu­ally eva­luate if the navi­ga­tion sys­tem is poin­ting toward a win­ning desti­na­tion, and must be decisive in pivo­ting (or pul­ling the plug) if the path is lea­ding to a less than desi­ra­ble result.

Over the last years, we have expe­ri­en­ced signi­fi­cant wins here in Thü­rin­gen, and we and our Inves­tee-Part­ners will con­ti­nue to push our­sel­ves extre­mely hard to create win­ning visi­ons, to take risks when oppor­tu­nity avails its­elf, and to not mistake pro­gress of any kind for pro­gress towards winning.

Now, let’s go out there and win together!

Your bm|t Team