Risks

If you can avoid making the same mistakes people before you have made, wouldn’t you want to avoid them if you can? Sometimes the best learning is through making mistakes. However, for a fast-growing company, too many of these mistakes can be fatal.

A fatal mistake can be in holding so tightly to your initial vision for your company that you fail to see opportunities that are placed before you. 

Opportunities

If you can engage with someone who’s been there and done that, with someone who has either made the mistakes themselves or seen them made repeatedly, and learn from that, you can spend your time more effectively focusing on the things that really do matter.

Sometimes, it’s just helpful to hear someone say that what you’re feeling is normal. That the craziness, the sense that it’s chaos and everyone’s running around like crazy – that is normal. It’s not going to change anytime soon, but that chaos also produces a lot of energy, which is really good.

LinkedIn didn’t set out to be in the recruiting business and that’s its biggest business today.  Pinterest didn't set out to be in the business of making photos beautiful. Zappos wasn't aiming to be in the fashion service business. These companies had different aspirations.

You’ve got to have a philosophy and a leadership team that’s open to seeing, listening and evaluating the feedback you are getting and being willing to change. The winds will change. The team that can move quickly and put those winds behind them will really have an advantage.