Frameworks

A rover is moving in a treacherous alien land in search of life, often in complete darkness.

I am trying to use this framework to give structure to my thoughts when I think of which areas I need to pay attention while running a startup.

So if startup is like a rover, that is moving around in search of life, which in startup world is equivalent of finding value in the economic landscape. Then, it must have some sensors which detect signals. There is an astronaut sitting inside who makes judgement based on those signals. These lands keep on changing and Rover needs stability to be able to keep moving. In order to take on harder and harder landscapes, rover needs to be bigger and more complex, to be able to morph and traverse any surface. Moreover, as it find a direction, it faces more of a similar kind of surface and it needs to become better at traversing through that surface. But that growth, can not come at the cost of stability.

If we think like this, then there are only 5 aspects that sum up where the startup should be paying attention.

• Growth - in terms of team members, value delivered etc
• Stability - in terms of managing members, managing growth, managing capital etc
• Direction - so that the startup is not burning all the fuel, rotating in the same place.
• Sensor - A set of measurables that help the astronaut decide which way the ship must be steered.
• Awareness - the astronaut, him not being dizzy, him noting down all the sensor signals and being unbiased (instead of ignoring all reds)

As a first, I will use this framework for clustering a set of question I am looking an answer for to be able to make better decisions about my startup.