Is your early stage business stretched? Good!

Most early stage companies feel stretched. While they don’t lack for ideas, they typically lack for resources (money, people, time, etc.). In my book this is a good thing. Scarcity of resources forces starker choices and ultimately results in better decision making. I sometimes joke with companies about the occasional over-funded competitor and tell them to use their relative lack of funding as a “competitive advantage”. What I mean is that lacking endless resources (or seemingly endless resources – in many cases even gobs of money eventually runs out) will force them to focus on what’s important, not what everything that’s possible, probable or half way interesting.

To me this discipline results in better decisions and ultimately better companies.