Deserted Island Strategy

Posted by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Aug 27, 2007 in Business, Business Theory, Design, Developing, Innovation, Inspiration, Money, Personal, Programming | 2 comments

The Deserted Island post was first published on April 23, 2006 at the Fleck.com Blog. Since then I have talked about it often. Today I found out that I never published it here on my personal blog. So here it is.

It is a common mistake for start-ups (and people in general) to presume that if they would have more [anything] their product would be much better. More money, more people, more clients, more anything.

People complain ‘If only I had the resources’ or ‘If only my boss would support me more’. You see these obstacles and think that if in some way you could make them disappear, everything would work fine. We make the same mistakes at Fleck, regularly. But we are aware of it too and try to recognize our mistakes and fix them.

Funding is a good example. A lot of ‘would be’ entrepreneurs think that they can’t get started before they have their funding taken care of. They say ‘I can’t do anything before I get funded’. of course, they are wrong. Getting started is hard but also simple. You can register a domain name for $9.95. You can start a blog for free in 5 minutes. Can’t afford a developer? Go to php.net and learn PHP in two weeks, for free. There is no excuse for not starting.

So how do you shape the best circumstances for success? How would you motivate someone or a team?

A: get them all the resources they need, a great team of talented people to work with and enough money to buy anything. Get the whole company behind it and make sure no obstacles are in their way.
B: take away their resources, give them nobody, no money and publicly criticism them.

If you could chose in which team you would want to work you would take option A, right? Me too. But history shows that the greatest products are often the result of a situation that more resembles option B, not A.

Take the Apple Macintosh as an example. The developers made less money than all the other developers at Apple. They had to hide their consultants in a closet when they suspected the CEO would visit and if management found out what they were doing they were likely to be fired.

Think about that for a minute: would you work on a product in your company if it might get you fired if your boss would find out about it?

Who is more likely to be really motivated to build a boat?

A: a well fed and well paid employee
B: someone stranded on a deserted island

My guess, and experience, would say that the stranded person will be very motivated. Despite, or thanks to, his lack of money, food and resources. Hence, the Deserted Island Strategy…

So what does this tell us about start-ups? We at Fleck are constantly working on funding and improving our setting and resources. You want to have the best resources and the most money we can get and build the best product possible. But at the same time it must be very clear that a lack of resources, money and time can never be a reason to have a less than great product.

The only thing that really has an impact is the dedication to the product and your personal motivation.