If the Shoe Fits: Shooting From the Hip
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
One of the hardest things that founders/startups face is the need to grow up and stop shooting from the hip.
I hear the reasons not to all the time
- It will ruin our culture.
- It stifles creativity.
- It’s for larger companies.
- It’s bureaucratic.
- It’s too time consuming.
“It” refers to the underpinnings of all successful companies. “It” includes the following, or variations thereof, in order of importance:
- Financial controls that include, but are not limited to
- monthly statements of revenues by product;
- discounts;
- costs by department;
- cost of customer acquisition;
- stock issuance;
- cash flow;
- hiring by department
- Hiring process
- Annual operating plan covering the above financial measures
- Organization charts and definitions of responsibilities
- Long-term planning
- Centralized information technology implementation and planning
Whether it’s just you, or one, ten, fifty, or more employees, whether full time, part time or virtual, you need viable processes to keep you focused—think of it as coloring inside the lines.
Everything on this list can, and should, be tailored to your business model, but financial controls of one sort or another and a good hiring process are necessary to any business.
Sure, they can’t all be implemented at once, but none of them will happen as long as your MAP rejects or begrudges them—after all, you’re the founder and people will follow your lead.
Finally, don’t confuse process with bureaucracy.
Process is like MAP, it gets you where you want to go, whereas bureaucracy stifles whatever it touches.
Process, like MAP, is ever-growing, while bureaucracy is carved in stone.
Image credit: HikingArtist
