Happy New Year… And You Better Be Running!
January 6, 2010
As founders and or CEO’s of early and expansion stage software companies, many of you have a fiscal year end that coincides with the calendar year end. There is a tendency at the end of the year more so then any other time to take a deep breath and relax. And that is not how you make sure you have a successful year.
Consequently the most important thing for you to focus on right now is getting your management team and company off to a good start in the new year.
25 years ago I went into an executive’s office where he had an old African proverb on the wall that I immediately identified with that is below.
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.
As a Venture firm that provides growth capital and operational expertise to expansion stage software companies we are doing everything possible to help each of our portfolio companies wake up in the morning running this week. Encouraging them to make sure all the operational teams from Development, to Marketing to Customer Care to Sales etc. have their goals for the quarter, have their compensation plans if appropriate and have their teams off the sidelines and on the field executing the strategy for the year.
If you want to grow your software company in 2010 you better start running!
All the best!
G