Anyways opened up my daily emails and was caught by an article from my LinkedIn feed by Mark Suster called Startup Mantra: Hire Fast, Fire Fast. Which actually more or less has nothing to do with this post haha. However at the beginning of the article Mark goes on a little rant of his own (kinda like the one I'm doing now). There he says;
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"They (successful entrepreneurs) know that a 70% accurate decision made quickly and based on sound principles is better than a 90% decision made after careful consideration."
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This struck quite a cord with me so I promptly posit it to my Facebook status. The words however stuck with me for most of the day. Being a recent college grad and data-centric myself I often fear that I fall prey to analysis paralysis. So I malled it over in my head for quite some time, and then (as with most things) completely forgot about it.
The day wore on and I found myself loading the dishwasher after dinner. I put a few dishes in and tried to be a good boy and place then wherever the manufacture had so ingeniously designed each plate and cup to go. Or perhaps that was my own version of OCD coming out. But as more and more dishes kept coming and coming I found myself trying to pile this pan here and that pan over there. Then those darn little tupperware came so I picked up the pans I had just place put the tupperware under them then the pans back over it (slightly beamed with pride at my Boy Scout packing skills). But the dishes kept coming and so I kept find new ways to pack everything in. When I was done I looked at my masterpiece and was sure that if the dishwasher were a room it'd be over the occupancy limit.
I thought that is definitely not how that was designed to be done and my mom may not have approved. Not to mention that some of those dishes definitely were not going to get as clean as they could have. But hey it worked I thought. And that is where it hit me. The market (my wife) didn't demand any higher quality or efficiency than that. So why should the service or product provider (me) do anything more than what the market demands? So often well meaning entrepreneurs or startup companies spent too much time on what could be instead of what should be. I could've spent a lot more time better placing the dishes instead of just piling them and probably done it with two loads instead of one. But instead I was able to meet (hopefully they pass inspection!) the market demand (get the dishes clean) at only 70ish%. Give the market what it demands and not a penny more. If you do then it'll just increase your bottom line through opportunity cost.
Well if nothing else I've got a long winded story to tell the wife in case they don't pass inspection!
