Adolescent Behaviour

The start-up holds an almost mythological place in the mindset of the technology industry, often perceived as a zen like state with all elements in perfect balancing producing perfect software.

This article is not meant to be an attack on the notion of a start-up, many large organisations can benefit from the principles and practices they observe.

Instead it presents some views of behaviours often observed in a start-up culture, not necessarily good or bad but simply a consequence of being new on the block with limited resources and a strong desire to be successful quickly.

Bend the Truth

Start-ups are often in a constant state of seeking funding, whether directly via venture capitalists or investors, or indirectly via trying to attract customers to provide an income stream. This means they are very often pitching, both formally and informally, they are trying to get their message across and advertise their capabilities and ambitions.

This may seem a controversial statement but sometimes they lie, and actually this is ok.

Especially in the very early days if a start-up was honest about their current capabilities they would have very little to pitch so it is natural that this gets embellished to present future goals as already being in the here and now.

The critical factor is that everyone needs to recognise that the truth is being bent.

Those being pitched to need to understand the nature of a start-up in this position and judge them more on whether they think they can get to the destination they are pitching and not whether they believe they have already arrived.

In turn the start-up should not present whats required to its developers as if this was always supposed to be the case and acknowledge hard work and savvy will be required to meet expectations.

It is possible to sell a dream as reality and hit deadlines but all parties must acknowledge the nature of the pitch and agree to work together to make the lie true.

Building Front to Back

Another consequence of the constant need to be pitching is the hunt for the wow factor. No matter the level of engineering genius it is difficult to get people excited about an effective and scalable infrastructure design or testable and adaptable software architecture.

This leads to a natural concentration on the frontend over the backend, to developing an awe inspiring UI\UX that is teasing at the functionality and possible ingenuity underneath.

In time if the venture is to be a success an equally effective backend will be joined with this snazzy and flashy front end but initially there will be growing pains as the first iteration creaks under the weight of the frontend ambitions.

Again the important factor here is an acknowledgement of reality, such that we don't over estimate what is achievable in this initial phase of the organisations development, along with the fact that effort will need to be expended on building the capability that was hinted at.

Make Noise

The goal of many start-ups is not to scale their original idea into a Goliath, starting from zero and scaling out to infinity is an extremely difficult undertaking. Thats why often many are looking for a shortcut that often involves becoming part of a larger organisation.

A tactic for achieving this is to make noise about the possibilities your technology points at, to wet the appetite of other organisations and tempt them into taking a chance that this could be the next big thing.

This tends to lead to effort being put into the core technological aspects of a proposition and not necessarily on scaling it out. Scale is put off to another day when the resources available to the organisation may have grown significantly and quickly, both financial and in terms of experience of taking things to the next level.

As with the previous points this approach isn't a problem providing all involved are in on it and honest about the objective of the initial short and medium term goals.

Not all the points made in this article are relevant or accurate for all start-ups. So called unicorns who start life or soon achieve vast resources are often not constrained by the issues mentioned here.

But this is a very different situation to be in compared to a small band of people trying to build success from humble beginnings, this presents a unique challenge without a guaranteed blue print for success. This leads to certain unique behaviours that while at first may seem questionable is understandable given the circumstances and can lead to success despite the initial seemingly overwhelming odds.