"Go Big or Go Home!". Why Go Home?

Met a few fellow entrepreneurs who have given up on a wonderful Vision, a compelling initial product/prototype/business just because the market did not respond well enough - or fast enough. And they didn't get funded.

"Go Big or Go Home" - they said!

And the completely committed entrepreneurs are now fully switched off. They don't even want to discuss the possibility of hanging in there. They've moved on to their next venture. Or gone back to a job.

"Go Big or Go Home" shows up in signature files and during media interviews.

"We are here to change the world. And if we can't do it, why hang around?"

In our journey so far, we learnt that the world is not waiting to be changed. And definitely not waiting for us. If our product doesn't make sense, the world doesn't care.

And it is our job to get the world to see that my product makes sense.

"I didn't quit my high-paying job to do something small. If it doesn't have scale, I don't want to be associated with it."

The market doesn't give a damn if I quit a high-paying job. Nobody asked me to.

The market doesn't care if I got funded.

The market will be ready when it is ready. And when my offering makes sense.

Not when my start-up is ready.

"And anyway, why do something small?"

Sure. Let's all do something Big. But why the "...or Go Home" bit?

Businesses take Time to build. Related post on the topic of TIME while building a business

An implied aspect in the "Go Big or Go Home" is Speed.

Go Big. Fast.

Or

Go Home. Quickly.

Why is everyone in a hurry?

Why not execute the Vision at a smaller scale and keep trying to Go Big?

If I really believed in the Vision, why wouldn't I stay with it?

Or is the Vision compelling only if it "Goes Big"?

Is the Vision compelling only if I get funded?

Or do I need to make "Go Big or Go Home" type statements to get funded? And then I start believing my own PR?

Maybe the Vision is right but the Timing is wrong. See Bill Gross' talk on the single biggest reason why startups succeed - TIMING.

Or maybe my execution is flawed. Product or Pricing or Distribution or Positioning. Whatever.

I should hang in there and fix it. Not Go Home!

Why "Go Home" if I still have the chance to execute on the compelling Vision? ...albeit at a smaller scale and maybe without funding. Brick by brick.

An excellent book by Vir Sanghvi – Men of Steel – contains stories of leading Indian businesses – Nandan Nilekani, Uday Kotak, Sunil Mittal, Azim Premji etc. (Read a good review here)

Infosys. Wipro. Airtel. Kotak. 30 years. 40 years. 50 years.

And most of them experienced failure multiple times before finding success.

"Go Big or Go Home"? Not really.

Should it be:

Go Big. Or Hang-in-there-till-you-go-big.

And enjoy the ride!