You Can't Expand While Your House is On Fire

Building a business or product offering is comparable to building a house. First you lay the foundation, then the rough carpentry, roofing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, drywall, flooring and finishings, in that order. God forbid you try to install the plumbing after the drywall has gone up, otherwise you will have to rip it all down and start again, at double the cost. And, unless an architect has provided the builder with a clear blue print on what is being built, chaos will surely follow.

But, that only talks about the initial construction. Unlike a house, a good business or product offering is fluid in its design and is constantly trying to improve, to keep up with its competitors and its customers’ needs. Think of it as evolving from version 1.0 to version 2.0 over time, captured by the mantra: continue to innovate or die a slow death. But, the worst thing you can do, is try to build features of version 2.0 on top of flaws embedded in version 1.0. That is the equivalent of building a house of cards, where the whole thing can topple over with one wrong move.

Read the rest of this post in Entrepreneur, which I guest authored this week.

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