If you run the City to Surf, you’ll know how, at the start, everyone looks great in their flash Sydney running gear and fake tans. But there’s a point where you’re exhausted trying to slog up the hill, you grunt, splash water on your face, and no longer care what anyone thinks about you.
Running a start-up is like this all the time!
It is hard work and sometimes downright draining.
It takes energy to maintain the appearance of perfection: give it up and you’re lighter and happier!
I love the music business, but the need for everyone to look perpetually brilliant suffocates the industry’s ability to evolve as quickly as it must.
If record company execs, managers and promoters would talk openly and publicly about their challenges and failures then they could work together to solve problems and it would save making so many of the same mistakes over and over.
Thankfully, the start-up industry is completely different.
Failure is applauded – almost too much – and there’s a community of events, groups and media that encourages us all to share what we’re learning.
Start-up teams and their products are evolving faster and as a result everyone is more likely to succeed and the world will get higher quality new products to experience.
So, radical openness is my new philosophy.
The more open you are the more likely you’ll get the advice you need from team members, users and the start-up community at large.
You’ll take people with you on a journey and if nothing else, being candid requires a lot less energy than being guarded!
