Good Judgment Comes From Experience; Experience Comes from Bad Judgment
In a recent interview with newsletter Term Sheet, Bill Gurley said these words and they resonated with me. For him, he was referring to the insanity of the venture capital industry in general -- on the macro scale and how his mistakes -- particularly in the original dot-com bubble of 2000 affected how he raised money and invested the rest of his career.
The idea that without bad judgment, you will never get a good judgment is a problematic statement, or is it? Yes, it's easy to read a book and follow someone's path. But if your situation is dissimilar, or you don't understand why someone did what they did, you may never be able to repeat their success. Also, you can't discount luck. Sometimes your position and work puts you in the right room and at the right time, and the business retrospective on all the smart moves after the lucky break is not core to the story. They are the after-effects.
How To Avoid Mistakes in Business: Lessons from Career Reflections
In my career, I can reflect on countless mistakes:
Products that didn't succeed.
Investor outcomes that didn't produce enough results.
Hiring the wrong person.
Firing the wrong person.
Signing the wrong customer.
Not marketing enough.
Marketing too much before a product was ready.
Not building the right strategy.
What do I go back to over and over in my decision-making? Two simple things.
1 - Who is this for?
2 - Do I understand how they think?
The Importance of Understanding Your Audience in Effective Decision-Making
As a product manager, business leader, and now consultant, if you don't understand your audience then virtually any business strategy is worthless.
Early in my career, I wanted to visit enough customers to understand their nuances. "The customer is not like you. They don't think like you, they don't do business like you, their offices are not like yours, and their goals are not the same as yours."
Steve Johnson from the Pragmatic Marketing Institute always preached that, and it stuck with me.
Everyone talks about customer-centricity in what they are doing. "We're trying so hard; look at all we are doing for them."
But your efforts will miss the mark if you aren't clear on who "they" are, how they evaluate and make decisions, and what they wake up worrying about.
Not because you are wrong - you might have some good ideas. But because they aren't the MOST IMPORTANT ideas to your customer.
Think about it this way: would you take it if someone offered you a new house in a new neighborhood, and your kids were settled in school and had best friends?
If you even think about it for half of a second, it gives you some idea that you might not truly appreciate your customer's underlying motivations.
What are some things you've taken with you during your career?
Expert Consulting: How Will You Grow Your eCommerce Company?
When growth is elusive, I am an expert at asking incisive questions to surface the real issues and then present straightforward ideas that your team can actually implement.
Mistakes are expensive. They cost money, of course. What’s worse is the opportunity cost. I work with investors and management teams worldwide to help them get a handle on their digital business plans to execute a clear path forward.
For more on Consulting, you might also like: