Generally, there are two types of decisions that all startup entrepreneurs will need to make to create a high-growth potential and sustainable company. Your decision-making focus is important for your business’s success.
Generally, you will need to make two types of decisions as an entrepreneur.
First, these types of decisions are strategic decisions that will have really high consequences on the company’s future but now look unimportant for entrepreneurs. These are decisions that will shape the look and the direction that your company will take in the future.
The second type of decision is everyday decisions related to maintaining startup operations with high consequences in the present and very low future consequences that currently look like the most important things.
Current Reality With Startup Entrepreneur’s Decision-Making Focus
What is the current reality when it comes to decision-making focus with most startup entrepreneurs?
The reality with most of entrepreneurs with decision-making focus, according to my experience, is presented in the following figure.
According to this figure, most entrepreneurs, in large part, focus on decisions that have low consequences for the future of the startup. Still, currently, in the eyes of these entrepreneurs, they are something most important that they need to decide or make as quickly as possible. In such a situation, they simply start to ignore the strategic decisions because these types of decisions have low current importance, according to them.
Related: Real-life Organizational Decision-Making Examples
For example, they are focusing all their attention on details about product features that are really important in this startup phase, but they think that bringing staff with the right competence is not so important in this phase, even if it is a strategic decision on which the future of the company will depend.
Be careful. In the startup phase, many important things look unimportant for many entrepreneurs.
Paradoxically, sometimes I have also seen entrepreneurs who really lose their time on decisions that aren’t something important to bring value to the company in the future and currently have really low importance for them. Why this happens, I really don’t know, but my thinking is that they simply want to do something, focusing themselves on the wrong and unimportant things. This is something that I will pay more attention to in my future studies in this field.
So, these startup entrepreneurs are focusing on decisions that will help them maintain their startup’s current operations and decisions that will simply waste their time. While the focus on maintenance is OK, it is not the only focus that will be required from the startup entrepreneurs. Additionally, for the future success of their startups, they will need to think strategically and make strategic decisions.
What Type of Decisions Will Bring Success to the Startup Process
One thing that will need to be clear when it comes to the success of the startup process is what we really mean when we talk about success. As you know, success is defined differently by different entrepreneurs. Some of them think that the success of the startup process is surviving. Others think that success is creating a sustainable or sellable company. Some of them think that success is creating a great job for the founders, but others think that success is creating a high-potential growth company.
When I talk about the success of the startup process, I think about the process that will result in a high-potential growth company with large sustainability for the future.
To succeed in this, the startup entrepreneur’s decision-making focus will need to change drastically. These changes are presented in the figure below.
- First, all startup entrepreneurs will need to reject all decisions that will have low future consequences for their company, and at the same time, they are of low current importance for them. Why lose time, effort, and focus on something that will not help you in building a high-potential growth company with large sustainability for the future?
- Continue your focus on the decisions allowing you to maintain all current startup operations, but don’t put all your focus on them. Yes, continue your current work, but don’t make it the one and only thing on which you are focusing all your efforts. As you can see, you will have additional important things to decide.
- Change your current importance for all decisions with low current importance for you but with high future consequences for your company. These types of decisions will need to become strategic decisions for you and something on which you will need to work.
- Ensure that all strategic decisions will have high current importance for you. You can’t allow yourself the luxury to ignore required strategic decisions when you are in the startup phase. They are important for the future of your company.
