The Deep End of the Pool

You are often confronted with problems you haven’t solved before in a startup. Problems that no one on the team or perhaps anywhere has solved before. Being comfortable jumping into the deep end of the problem-solving pool is essential for startup success.

As entrepreneurs, we often do not have the luxury of well-trodden paths to follow or well-developed procedures to execute to do our work. By the very nature of seeking to be innovative, we are trying to go places and do things that have not been done before. That means we often have to jump in and do things we are not really well-equipped to tackle.

I recall talking to one of my co-founders at Fifth Eye after a couple of years in the startup trenches. This was his first startup experience, and I asked him what he was most surprised by in his startup experience so far. His answer perfectly illustrates this sense of jumping off a cliff into uncharted waters that often characterizes different moments in startup land. He said that, when he left the university to join this new startup adventure, he had not realized that, unlike at the university with its abundant resources and endless specialists, most of the time, there would not be anyone he could call to get help on something he was unsure about. He had to learn that he just needed to jump in and figure out a path forward from what he could piece together. And, the very fact that he learned to do that meant to me that he had the “right stuff” for being a startup leader!

I remember another conversation with another co-founder as we were working on our software medical device and talking about what we knew and what we still needed to learn. As we brainstormed about what was coming down the road ahead of us, he said someone around here needs to become an expert on the FDA. We looked at each other, thought about who had the capacity, and began leveraging our consultants to learn everything we could to build our knowledge about the FDA so we could successfully navigate the regulatory process – which we did two times last year. None of us had extensive experience in regulated medical devices or the regulatory arena. Still, we also were not able to hire a full-time specialist, so we did what startup teams do and jumped in and began to learn.

The image of jumping into the deep end of the pool resonates for me because I think it captures the uncomfortable feeling of consciously deciding to tackle something where you feel ill-equipped and are facing lots of risks and uncertainties. Even as you know something needs doing, you realize that you cannot just stick your toe in the water. You cannot wade in, acclimate to the water, and safely feel your way forward. There just is not enough time or someone to hold your hand. So even though you do not know for sure what is underneath the water, you jump into the deep end of the pool and just start swimming. You will either figure out how to swim in that pool, or you will sink and die trying.

This is the stuff that differentiates “startup people” from “not startup people.” I have seen people join a startup for the first time and become unnerved entirely by the need to jump and swim. They seldom last long before they head for more well-resourced environments. Jumping into the deep end of the pool puts a premium on:

• The ownership mentality that sees a problem and decides to own seeing it through to a solution

• The ability to figure out what is important – and what is worth the risk of jumping for

• The ability to learn quickly and to successfully accomplish the task

• The courage to leap into the unknown.

Before you venture into a startup, think about how you feel about leaping into the deep end of the pool. If you have been doing that regularly along your journey, you will probably enjoy the thrill of solving problems on the edge. If not, consider carefully if a startup is a place you will enjoy being.