Build Bridges Before Kingdoms
I was sitting across the table from three founders in their mid-twenties in a trendy restaurant tucked away on the north side of Manhattan Beach, California. During our dinner conversation over the last hour, it had become relatively clear that all of them were intelligent, ambitious, and creative — which led me to my next question: “So why hasn’t this thing taken off?”
These founders had traveled from halfway across the country on a rapidly depleting bank account to have this conversation. They were here to explain to our leadership team why they hadn’t been able to find traction for their new line of ed-tech products over the last three years, and why our company should acquire them nonetheless.
Immediately, one of the founders responded in a tone that reeked of late nights asking himself the exact same question:
He went on to explain that he and his two co-founders had built a line of products for the “Future of Education” — for the future teacher, student, and parent. Yet, when they attempted to sell their products to the schools of today, the pitch fell flat as many of the concepts and tools they had built upon were foreign.
The bridge metaphor has stuck with me since that conversation. It’s a powerful visual, absolutely, but I also think it has a subtle attribute that we just don’t see enough of in newborn Silicon Valley companies: Modesty.
At this point in my career, I’ve listened to a couple hundred pitches. I’ve come to realize that a consistent giveaway of a poorly thought-out product strategy is an avid avoidance of building something modest. When I say modest, I’m referring to the willingness to build something that isn’t flashy or steeped in wow-factor. A modest product strategy produces something useful in the current market, and it does it in a relatively obvious way.
Over the past years, we’ve built a startup culture that idolizes the bold and outlandish — The people who get up on a stage and say “The current way we do X is wrong”. It makes sense — this is what gets media attention, but, more importantly, startup employees more often than not compose the early-adopters segment of an adoption curve — we’re all about disruption and staying away from status-quo.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m all for bold, moonshot visions. Rallying highly intellectual and ambitious people around a shared mission requires boldness and a promise for major impact.
However, the art of building a successful company, product, and business relies on you keeping this boldness in constant check by staying modest with the value you’re actually delivering to users right now.
This is why the bridge metaphor is powerful. It gives credence to the bigger thing you’re trying to create while also remaining modest about the things you need to build before anyone can get there.
Your vision for the future world is your kingdom. It’s lavish, bold — a Utopian future. Your kingdom is your motivator, your driver. Kingdoms are what you deliver at a company all-hands, in PR interviews, in brand campaigns, or when recruiting new talent. Your kingdom is the promise you make to your users and team on where you’re all headed.
Bridges, on the other hand, are how your users go from where they are today to slightly closer to the island your kingdom sits on. They are not as lavish or bold, but they are very functional. Your bridge should be your first product — the thing that gets your users a bit closer to your ultimate vision but mainly just solves a current critical problem in a really convenient way.
This is where the modesty comes in. Your bridge probably doesn’t sound as flashy or cutting edge as your kingdom. It’s probably not a complete disruption of status-quo. Realistically, your bridge is probably a pretty obvious first step.
Almost every successful company you can think of started with a bridge. Facebook started as a simple social platform for a few colleges. Amazon sold books online. Uber connected people with taxis via UberCab. Google was just another internet search tool that ranked websites a little bit better than competitors. GoGuardian started as a way to locate stolen Chromebooks.
If you look at these companies now, it’s obvious that they are building towards something bigger than their first product — a kingdom. Yet they all started with a product that solved an immediate user problem — a bridge.
You can’t build a kingdom without building a bridge first.
So how do so many smart and ambitious people keep making the same mistake? How do you make sure you’re building a bridge and not a kingdom when you’re starting on a new venture?
You have to stay hyper-focused on solving a current problem for your users. You can’t afford to get caught up in your vision for a Utopian kingdom. You need to do something that matters to your users, right now. If you’re building something that doesn’t solve your users’ current problems, then you’re building a kingdom, not a bridge.
How do you make sure you’re solving your users’ current problems?
You ask.
Silicon Valley funding rounds have enabled a trend of startups being able to survive despite a prolonged delay in exposure to user feedback. Many startups have raised a seed based on an idea for a kingdom with absolutely no bridge in sight.
User feedback and validation is your golden ticket to make sure you’re building a bridge. Figure out what your target users’ biggest problems are today, and then go solve those . If you’re already building — go out and ask your users if they would use your product tomorrow. Ask them if they would ditch their current solution for what you are building.
It’s okay to build something a little less flashy and ground-breaking when you’re starting off. It’s okay to be modest around the problem you are solving today…
You’re building a bridge before your kingdom.
Build Bridges Before Kingdoms
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