Every Startup is a Custom Job

Innovative high-potential startups are, by their very nature, “custom jobs.”

What is the opposite of a “custom job?” Something that is specified, designed, refined, and repeatable.

As an analogy, consider the building of a “spec home.” Spec home builders construct homes in volume so that they can offer a cost-effective home solution to the market. By selecting a limited set of broadly appealing plans and then building them over and over, the homebuilder hones their understanding of the design, works out any sticky bits, learns precisely what materials are needed, who the best suppliers are, and can explore and optimize different approaches, refine the order of different building stages, and ultimately squeeze out unnecessary wasted work and materials. Furthermore, they simplify the homebuyers’ decision-making processes by offering a limited set of finish choices. All of these refinements turn spec homebuilding into a well-characterized manufacturing process that becomes more predictable and cost-effective over time. Working with an experienced and specifically trained set of workers, the spec homebuilder essentially applies the principles of manufacturing efficiency and quality control to optimize the home building process in a way that enables them to offer lower prices at acceptable margins. For the entrepreneurially minded, spec homebuilding is similar to buying a franchise whose formula is known and tested, with the advantage of repeated experience deploying the same business over and over in slightly different contexts.

Now consider the opposite of a spec home: a custom-built home. The fully custom home is built once. The architect collaborates with the future homeowners to design the home of their dreams, with all the little special features and touches that make the fully custom home fit the future owners uniquely and beautifully. While the architect applies their knowledge of good practices, ultimately, the fully custom home design is untested. It may contain some elements that are a perfect fit for the first owners, but ultimately prove quirky to future owners. The custom homebuilder has to do extensive creative invention and problem-solving along the path of bringing a custom home to life. There will be false starts when something does not work out as expected in the plans. There are often special materials that need to be uniquely sourced and installed. Endlessly detailed design decisions need to be made as the custom home emerges, presenting new and unusual problems and complex interactions between the different trades. The custom homebuilder must rely on a higher skilled set of artisans who can translate never-built concepts on paper into embodied reality. In many ways, a fully custom home is a prototype, built once and without the benefit of the learning that happens as one refines a repeated process over time.

Now, consider the creation of a high-potential startup. Is it more like a manufactured spec home or more like a fully custom home? I suggest that since innovative startups are always trying to tackle an unmet need in a new way, unless it is a pure “me, too” play, which probably would not qualify as innovative. That means the startup team has to develop a “custom” design for their product (and a startup business to support it), sort through all the various tradeoffs, and prioritize what needs to happen first, second, and third. Grapple with a continuous stream of unfolding unknown unknowns, face down resource limitations, and solve the next most crucial problem over and over again. Like building a fully custom home, the process will be riddled with false starts, special needs, and uncertainty. Building the startup will require endless creativity, the ability to venture into the unknown and chart a workable path, rerouting when unexpected obstacles appear, and tremendous grit and perseverance in the face of the resistance that always stands in the way of de novo creation.

Like building a custom home, I find it helpful to remember that building a startup is like building a prototype. The first version is unlikely to be perfect. And each new problem solved, each new team member added, and each refinement stroke will evolve the first prototype into the second and the third as the startup team feels their way forward along the steep learning curve. This is why it “always” takes more money and more time than expected. You are charting a new course, not walking a well-known and frequently trodden path. While it is undoubtedly true that prior experience with similar prototypes (other startups) can give you a leg up on options for solving specific problems, ultimately, what makes an innovative startup innovative is that at least some aspects are new and unique. That very newness and uniqueness adds new requirements that must be met in a successful design.

Knowing that building a startup is always a custom job helps when you consider the level and types of skills you need to bring into the team, as well as dealing with the inevitable uncertainty and course changing that goes with the pathfinding required to solve something in a new and uniquely valuable way. Do not think there is a well-tested recipe for innovation. Set yourself up for success by thinking like a custom homebuilder trying to bring to life a beautiful solution uniquely tailored to the dimensions of the unmet customer need you are solving.