Comments on: Short Term Thinking – It Kills Startups Too.

By: Alexander Kjerulf

Alexander Kjerulf — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 15:59:36 +0000

I agree – short term thinking often causes problems.

You wrote: “New companies are often mired in confusion. The procedures and processes that exist at established companies aren’t yet in place.”

It’s funny, but in my experience it’s the other way around. As long as procedures and processes are less well defined, people are more free to step up and just solve the problem.

As organizationas grow older, more rules and procedures are established as well as a need to do things by the book. ‘

And THAT can mire a company in confusion.

One great thing about startups is their agility – something you risk losing to too much long term thinking.

Maybe a better solution is to be agressively short term – always changing to the current situation.

eXtreme Programming is a great example of a process that delivers great long term results through constant short term thinking.

By: David Bain

David Bain — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:35:26 +0000

The advantage that most start-ups have is that they don’t have to encounter a lot of unneccasary bureaucracy before a new business strategy can be executed. The danger is of course that decisions are made before adequate consideration of potential longer-term implications. As long as if a formal procedure is in place to question new business strategy, start-ups can retain this particular advantage.

By: Ben Yoskovitz

Ben Yoskovitz — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:55:40 +0000

I’d say short-term thinking runs rampant with startups. With the barriers to entry from a technology standpoint dropping all the time, startups can create something and launch it extremely quickly. That’s a good and bad thing — but it’s very often short-term thinking.

And now that we’re very much “post bubble” we’re seeing startups going after quick paydays: again, short-term thinking.