{"id":89,"date":"2011-10-18T15:22:24","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T15:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=89"},"modified":"2020-07-30T13:04:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T12:04:26","slug":"why-startups-need-a-strong-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/why-startups-need-a-strong-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Why startups need a strong vision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"opening_paragraph\">Meaningful companies are built upon a strong timeless vision. Let&#8217;s look at some examples\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;To organize the world\u2018s information and make it universally accessible and useful.&#8221; \u2014 Google<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;To be the pulse of the planet&#8221; \u2014 Twitter<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;To be earth&#8217;s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.&#8221; \u2014 Amazon<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These statements may sound abstract and grandiose, but as you begin to think about it, you realise why a plan like &#8220;<em>To be the Best iPhone Photo App for Sharing Pictures with Facebook Friends<\/em>&#8221; or &#8220;<em>Let&#8217;s Build Stuff and See What Happens, Right?<\/em>&#8221; just won&#8217;t cut it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/a-great-product-starts-with-a-great-vision\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">vision for a company<\/a> must be robust for years at a time. Technologies, social networks, trends, all come and go, and a company must stay relevant regardless. Notice how Google doesn&#8217;t mention search, Amazon doesn&#8217;t mention books, and Twitter says nothing about apps or tweets. This is long term thinking. You can&#8217;t base your company around current technologies, trends, or other companies. It&#8217;s about what you are doing for your customers. If you set out to build &#8220;The Number One MP3 Player for Bebo Pages&#8221;, well, sorry about it.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-startups-need-a-strong-vision\">What startups need a strong vision<\/h2>\n<div class=\"post_image_wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"First-Pyramid\" src=\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/First-Pyramid.jpg\" alt=\"Pyramid showing Vision, Goals, Strategy, Tactics and Activities (from ground up)\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A vision lets you set goals that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/videos\/10-core-principles-for-starting-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">define your path and progress<\/a>. For each goal, whether it&#8217;s &#8220;10% market share&#8221; or &#8220;100K Users&#8221;, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/sales-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">plan a strategy<\/a> for achieving it. A strategy lets you choose tactics, that is, different ways you can go about achieving it. Each tactic lets you pick your activities, the actual work to make it happen.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, that&#8217;s a lot. Let&#8217;s take a specific example\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"post_image_wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Second-Pyramid\" src=\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Second-Pyramid.jpg\" alt=\"Pyramid showing examples of Vision, Goals, Strategy, Tactics and Activities (from ground up)\" \/><\/div>\n<p>In practice there&#8217;s more than one goal, and as a result there&#8217;s multiple day to day activities. Here&#8217;s how that looks\u2026<\/p>\n<div class=\"post_image_wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Third-Pyramid\" src=\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Third-Pyramid.jpg\" alt=\"Pyramid showing Vision, multiple, Goals, Strategies, Tactics and Activities (from ground up)\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Setting a vision lets everyone know what direction they&#8217;re going, even in small teams. It helps you understand what activities are beneficial and which ones are valueless distractions. It tells you when to say no, and when to say <a href=\"http:\/\/sivers.org\/hellyeah\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hell Yeah<\/a>. As Michael Porter wrote in <em>What is Strategy<\/em>, &#8220;Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all a company\u2019s activities, not only a few.&#8221; A strong vision lets you define those activities.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"the-cheshire-cat-problem\">The Cheshire Cat Problem<\/h2>\n<div class=\"post_image_wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Alice-2.jpg\" alt=\"The Cheshire Cat Problem, what road to take, when you don\u2019t have a vision\" \/><\/div>\n<p>When you see all activities as being useful, no activities are useful. The problem with a plan like &#8220;Let&#8217;s keep adding good features&#8221; is that it&#8217;s hard for people to agree what&#8217;s a useful thing to spend time on. This is fine during exploratory days when you&#8217;re fishing around for a niche or an angle, but when you&#8217;re specifically trying to achieve something you need a common vision to help you define what you should be doing. When you don&#8217;t know where you&#8217;re going, any road looks good.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/so-you-want-to-build-a-brand\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letting a vision guide your team<\/a> requires smart, motivated, and trustworthy people. In the world of startups that&#8217;s just table stakes.<\/p>\n<p>Long road image by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/stuckincustoms\/4848088053\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stuck in Customs<\/a>.<br \/>\nPyramid concept borrowed from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/dianarailton\/how-content-strategy-supports-communications-strategy-by-diana-railton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Diane Railton.<\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meaningful companies are built upon a strong timeless vision. Let&#8217;s look at some examples\u2026 &#8220;To organize the world\u2018s information and make it universally accessible and useful.&#8221; \u2014 Google &#8220;To be the pulse of the planet&#8221; \u2014&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"category":[12897],"tags":[115,305,151,182],"coauthors":[348],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","tag-company-culture","tag-mission-statement","tag-startups-2","tag-strategy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why startups need a strong vision - The Intercom Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Meaningful companies are built upon a strong, timeless startup vision. 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