Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Startup Lessons from The Princess Bride
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie The Princess Bride. Those of us who love the movie can quote most of it, and almost everyone, it seems, knows Inigo Montoya's greeting for the six fingered man.
Want to know what you can takeaway from the movie while you're wearing your entrepreneur hat? As you wish...
1. Have fun storming the castle
When you started your business you accepted the long hours and the sleepless nights that were ahead of you, but you set out on your quest anyway. Storming that castle should always be fun, otherwise why do it, right? Didn't your last job as an employee suck, and that's why you struck out on your own?
The truth is that entrepreneurship is hard work, and it takes long hours and dedication, and if you don't love what you're doing you won't have fun doing it and you will eventually fail.
2. Succession planning is important
The Dread Pirate Roberts is not the first of his kind. There was a Dread Pirate Roberts before Westley, and one before that Dread Pirate Roberts, too. In the escape from the castle there's a suggestion the Inigo Montoya may take up Westley's mantle, and so we learn that it's the brand that's important, and succession planning helps maintain your brand's direction. Knowing when, how, and to whom to hand over the leadership of your brand is one of the biggest decisions you'll make in business. Gracefully exiting, letting go of the day to day running, and enjoying whatever your future brings -- that's why you started the company in the first place.
3. Experience makes you a better leader
Westley had no money for marriage, so he packed his belongings and headed out across the sea to seek his fortune. It's not an unfamiliar story: when Steve Jobs left Apple in 1986, he was, by most accounts, silicon valley's enfant terrible and had a temper to match. Losing a board room power struggle helped Jobs to understand that his vision had to be communicated to others in a way they can embrace. A decade later Apple asked him to come back, and the technology revolution that he spearheaded put futuristic gadgets in the hands of anyone that wanted one. In Jobs's own words, "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it."
4. You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means
Marketing is a wonderful thing, but many marketers seem to think that their audience are idiots, who need new words to help them understand simple concepts. The problem is that there are simple words that already do that, the marketers just use them incredibly badly, and worse, they invent words that have a shelf life that's as long as the marketing campaign. Yes, I'm looking at you, frugalicious, and at you nougatocity.
5. I'll explain and I'll use small words so I can be sure you understand.
There's nothing quite like products that don't require a user manual. In spite of the number of complicated tasks that can be handled by any of the multitude of iProducts that Apple have created, none of them have a particularly steep learning curve. That's the reason they sell in record numbers. Anyone, even a child, can pick up an iPad and figure out how to play music or games or solve complex mathematical problems. The point is that if you make a product that's too difficult to learn, users will quickly become frustrated ex-users. And those customers soon become ex-customers on the way to your company becoming an ex-company.
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