Startups – companies that are in their early stages. For our discussion let’s define startups to be the companies below $5M yearly revenue. These companies cannot run like mid-size or large companies.
The reason is simple; a startup is still finding its way. It is attempting to understand the market-forces, and it is trying to make its place in the market. It needs to be quick to offer products/features, and it also needs to be fast to remove products/features that do not gain traction. These rapid deliveries and retractions are not possible when each new product/feature is expensive to build and market.
Imagine you going turtle catching (turtling?), and you spend ages to catch a turtle to bring to a fish lover’s market. Chances are they will not want to eat the turtle you brought. You wasted time and money to catch this turtle. Instead, if you were able to deliver various kinds of fish rapidly to the market and observe what your customers like, then you can decide to put more time and money to catch the type of fish that is valued more.
I am a big fan of The Toyota Way for this reason. I will encourage you to read how Toyota manages their manufacturing assembly.