Idea Vs Execution strategy

Idea Vs Execution strategy

Most of the first time founders are overwhelmed by the awesomeness of their Idea. And when asked about Growth Hack, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy and Team building, the usual answer is “we will figure everything out once we get funded.” But most of the investors are looking for exact strategies right before funding them.

Is it a chicken and egg problem ? My answer is No.

In the media and in most of the articles, what occupies most space is “how founders came up with that awesome idea and how that idea, once scaled enough, will impact millions of people” :)

But if you go in depth and study, you will get to know how that Idea has evolved along with the founder's vision.?

Most of the Unicorn startups had started by targeting a smaller TAM or some niche market. But as they kept achieving their goals, they started making their goals and vision bigger and better.

What ensures startups achieve their goal is execution strategy, which is perhaps the most under-utilized word in this industry. Whenever there's a new idea in the market, many founders jump into the bandwagon of founding a startup with that idea by tweaking the most popular version of it.?

Later, one or two become successful (aka funded substantially) and rest all die down or get acquired during the journey.

Few attribute success to first-mover advantage, some others to last-mover advantage, while the rest attribute everything to the founder's background, or idea’s differentiators.

But if we go by the stats, we would find that there is no such pattern in the success of Startups. All these attributions happen when the Startups are successful. Even founders are not sure sometime that how they made it to success except their 24*7 devotion and unwillingness to accept failure.?

After talking to more than 20 successful Startup founders across the categories, I was able to derive one insight that their execution strategy was not a usual by-the-book approach. They had taken unprecedented steps to handle challenges. They had followed more risky paths than usual. They were not ready to be bogged down by the massiveness of the challenge.?

Each vertical (Growth, Sales, Operations, Tech) has its own set of challenges and requires a unique execution strategy to get month on month growth in numbers.?

Are these strategies straight forward ??

NO - Most of these successful strategies are carved out after many hits and trials. Usually led by the vertical heads and guided by the leadership of the company.?

Hence most of the investors are interested to hear those strategies from the founders and that's why they ask questions on Growth Hack, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy.?

Now you might say that you had seen news in the past where few founders get funding on day zero. That’s because few founders come with a solid background and experience of execution and strategy. So investors trust their experience rather than Idea :)

Conclusion:? Most of the ideas evolve during the journey of the startups. What matters most is how you make that idea to make a successful one, which requires a strong execution strategy. So if you are planning to work on an idea. Do convert the idea to step-by-step milestones and strategize about how you would reach those milestones month on month. During this journey you will figure out the bottlenecks in the Idea and you would surely pivot. And if you have a strategy you will be able to do it, else you will also blame the idea again :)