Throwing DartsI use this expression a lot as it pertains to building companies — “throwing darts.”
I use this expression a lot as it pertains to building companies — “throwing darts.”
Especially early on, I believe most of what we do at a startup is throw darts. We make guesses. We have assumptions about our product market fit. We think we can empathize well enough with our customers such that we understand their problems.
So we build things.
We throw darts.
These darts are “aimed” at doing one thing: testing an assumption.
The best founders understand this and try to aim their darts as quickly and efficiently as possible. While we are aiming for the bullseye, hitting it can be really hard. Sometimes we are throwing darts in the wrong direction. Sometimes we are just a little bit off.
How do we know we are off?
We pay attention to key metrics that tell us how we are doing.
Problem: it is hard to know which metrics are really important.
So we make our guesses on the best metrics, ironically, and then make decisions on where to throw our next dart.
Keep throwing.
Originally published at gonen.blog.
By jordangonen on May 30, 2017.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.