Beware the Siren Song of Scalability
08 Feb 2016“WILL IT SCALE?”
The answer to this question is important but only after answering another question: Does it need to?
There are many things that hang up entrepreneurs when forming their business plans or sketching out the model. Sometimes the obstacles relate to skill and competence. Others are questions of demand, market conditions and funding. These are external factors that provide the entrepreneur information to help make the right decisions about the venture.
But what about a simple question of how much is enough?
That idea, enough, is at the heart of the scalability question.
We live in a time of great innovation wildcatting. Young (in age and experience) people are taking risks and betting their security and stability on mere ideas because they see examples of great and immediate fortune constantly flashing across their devices.
This wonderful time has led to huge dreams, which results in society-changing innovation. And it is brilliant.
But it has also led to a false sense of failure if a company only nets 10x your parents’ combined annual income or enables you to pay off your student loan debt in one payment.
It would be easy and arguable to blame greed and materialism. But I don’t. I blame our parents and their hard work that enabled us to sit inside and spend time thinking instead of putting a hand to the plow or smashing rocks.
Since we (obviously painting with a grossly broad brush) have had the good fortune of not worrying about where the next meal comes from, we have developed a skewed sense of accomplishment. Enough for me and mine is not really “enough” in today’s publicized economy. That’s why businesses that gross hundreds of thousands of dollars do not get funded on Shark Tank. We only hear about the companies that are on the way to an IPO or monopoly money acquisition. And that plants a seed of a sense of failure if your business is only big enough to take care of all your needs and the needs of your family for a few generations.
Before asking yourself if your idea is scalable, ask yourself how much you need and whether your idea will get you there.
Don’t get hung up on the scalability question unless you can’t scale to “enough.”
Scale to enough, and I’d be shocked to learn you didn’t find a way or a need to scale past that.