Resources

Worth your time on this question

Everything worth your time on the question: Do I want the business, or the escape?

Five things on this subject: two TAIU exercises and three things to read. It opens with Strategy for Start-ups by Joshua Gans, Erin Scott and Scott Stern. Argues that a young venture is choosing between a small number of genuinely different routes to market, rather than executing one obvious plan.

This page is for going further on your own. If you would rather work the question out with somebody asking, that is the conversation.

Should I start something: talk it through

TRY · 12 MIN

Failure Before Failure

TAIU

It is a year from now and this failed. Write the reason before you start.

A pre mortem written before the consequential decision is made.

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TRY · 12 MIN

Should This Exist?

TAIU

The idea, the person it is for and whether it needs to exist.

The idea, the person it is for and whether it needs to exist at all.

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READ · ARTICLE

Strategy for Start-ups

Joshua Gans, Erin Scott and Scott Stern

Argues that a young venture is choosing between a small number of genuinely different routes to market, rather than executing one obvious plan. The choice is reversible for less time than founders think.

The Founder's Dilemmas

Noam Wasserman

A decade of data on the early decisions that decide whether a venture survives: who joins, on what terms and who holds control. The uncomfortable finding is that most damage is done in the first months, socially rather than commercially.

Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise

Saras Sarasvathy

Expert founders were found to start from what they already have, who they know and what they can afford to lose, rather than from a goal and a plan. It reframes starting something as a question about available means rather than about vision.

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