Venture ideas act as goalposts that we aim to charge towards. The venture journey, however, is not a linear one. It is filled with incomplete information and many more unknowns. While thinking about the product, can you help identify the number of avenues where the offering could be improved and developed? The toughest challenge then often lies in execution.
For the corporate trained, this challenge is even higher since the organization’s management process already narrows down the attention of individuals to very specific tasks. This allows for narrow spans of attention, improved efficiencies in the execution. This source of efficiency itself could limit us from learning something new and restrict our domains of experience. If we hang around for too long, the threat of becoming deskilled and useless looms large.
Another bane of being embedded in the lower-middle levels of the corporate hierarchy for too long is that you are more likely to be trained to believe that thinking is, in itself, an execution. You have a small group of people whom you guide and command towards accomplishing specific goals, so you begin monitoring their activities in line with the thoughtful expectations you set up for them. The adherence gives you rewards. However, this is not the case as entrepreneurs; thinking does not substitute execution.
Entrepreneurship requires one to be multi-faceted. You must do a little bit of everything and integrate it towards building the venture. Thinking is only the starting point of execution. You need to work with other people to get the venture idea into realization. Engaging in execution remolds our thinking into something that is grounded. It also ensures a higher rate of success, as against thought through ideas.
Another barrier to execution is in the inability of entrepreneurs to break their ideas into smaller executable components. These elements should not simply drive the creation of the offering but should at all points ensure that the venture and its value is validated.
Ask yourself:
How am I assuming things to happen in the venture building process?
Have I been stuck too long thinking about it? What is the simplest version of the idea as against the larger idea?