Tennis is pretty much like any other sport – how good you are depends not only on accuracy and strength but also on the variety of tricks you can pull in different situations. Wider the variety of shots you can perform, the higher the probability you will maximize efficiency by choosing the right one. Now this is where the person’s character begins to matter. Some like to concentrate and master perfectly the basics they have been taught, but others enjoy trying shots between legs, behind their back, demi-volleys etc. Your character defines the way you will behave at training and the type of stuff you will learn. In a match against a smart opponent, your wonderfully mastered forehand doesn’t do much because you will barely get the chance to use it.
Same goes for startups. To be good at a startup you have to have a wide range of tricks under your sleeves. But how do we get them? Well, experience obviously. Here’s one specific way to build experience: we live in a world of rules and laws. A lot of them are written down and can’t be crossed, but there are many many more that are not explicitly stated and under certain circumstances CAN be trespassed. Those are the ones you should be testing, exploring, and sizing. Here is what I mean:
Nobody ‘should’ cut a line in a store. But if you cut a line 10 times you may figure out that 5 out of those times people really don’t mind it. As a whole you are quite ahead of everybody. We can argue about ethics, but here the principle of testing is important. My little brother is extremely good at pushing limits to find the size of the playing field so he can use the whole width of it. He, for example, would drive you nuts just to figure out at what point you break. Then he knows that and can keep you on the edge always, thus maximizing his own proceeds. Again, this is an awkward example, but this applies also for how to deal with investors, negotiation, determining your burn rate and so on.
It’s hard (and probably pointless) to try and name specific steps you should be taking for ‘exploration’ but in any case you should be aware of it and watch out for those opportunities. Easiest way to spot them is when you meet an obstacle. Then you should just turn around and think, “Which soft limits can I cross so that I can get through this?” What is harder is getting at that ‘state of mind’ so you are automatically thinking of what you can do extra and go further even before being roadblocked. It doesn’t come naturally and you have to impose it consciously, but after a while it becomes your nature to see extra solutions, stop less in front of barriers, and enjoy life and all of it’s pleasures to the max. 😉
Let’s see what happens when we go outside of the red square 😉