The Gut Feel: How intuition can lead you to success in business

Chapter Four: Intuition and the start up

Chapter Four

This chapter examines the chaos of start-ups and the importance of intuition in helping to set priorities. Reasoning is sometimes too logical for start-ups and intuition is better. The concept of false intuition where your ego gangs up with your reasoning is discussed, where rising above this trap by using your interpretation of the big picture is a sign of personal mastery.

Intuition and the Start-up

If any of you have been involved in a start-up you will know how chaotic and stressful it can be. There are so many important things to do, so many issues to attend to, along with the need to absorb all things going on around you, and come up with the priorities of things to do. What makes it even more difficult is that you are learning as you go along about what is important and what is not so important. Money is going out, with none coming in and the clock is ticking. And in most cases this must be done “on the run” without time for planning.

Successful start-ups require you to find the path that is most important, most effective, and most efficient in influencing the outcome of what you want, called the “critical path” in project management. This must be done with minimal use of resources so they are conserved and can be utilized across the board for all things necessary during the start-up phase. The start-up period is difficult to plan because there are so many unknown issues and surprises ahead, that can’t adequately be planned for in advance.  As the saying goes “you must fly by the seat of your pants” intuitively, feeling your way and hopefully moving ahead in a manner that allows your start-up to be successful.

In a start-up situation there is a “critical thread of activities” that will position you where you want to be in relation to the big picture you envisage. There are many matters that require your attention, including matters like designing your business cards, picking the colour of your chair (if you buy them), to much more important matters like who will be your customers, What equipment will you require in the warehouse, what materials should be used in product packaging, or how should your services be divided up and charged to the customer. This all requires serious time and resources management. You don’t want to wear your resources down too thinly by applying them to the wrong things. No point having flashy business cards and beautiful office chairs if you don’t have packaging for your product and customers don’t come to your office. It’s a matter of priorities. Don’t laugh, in a situation of the chaos of a start-up it’s so easy to spend in the wrong areas, leaving you short later for the things you really need. It’s a really common story.

This is where intuition becomes so important in what you do, as we all know it’s better to have a tight gut, rather than a loose gut, for health reasons, if not anything else. In this case it’s about the health of your start-up enterprise. One has to know what resources to acquire, i.e., should I spend the whole day travelling across town to pick up some unwanted office furniture or warehouse racking and organize transport back to my new premises, or not? Where finance can be obtained (if necessary); and yes you may have to use the credit card and pay the extra interest to make ends meet. Good intuition helps you prioritise all these things, which minimizes your outlays. Intuition, don’t leave home without it. You need it to maintain self buoyancy throughout the chaotic start-up phase.     

In a start-up you have to allocate the time between setting up your administration, product design and development, production, marketing, and sales. There is no correct formula about how to allocate this time, however the author has always found that about 60% of the time was spent in initial sales, 30% in product development, and the remainder in setting up administration. However where the product and production processes are more complex and products might be made for order, the majority of focus and time may be put into the development of production facilities, maybe even 80-90%. Every business will have its own specific optimum time allocation.

What compounds problems in a start-up situation is that there is no historical budgeting to fall back on, so start-up budgets are really about your gut feelings on the matter. No doubt, this will change regularly. I have never met an entrepreneur that has been able to keep their start-up costs according to the laid down budget set before the start-up. Matters requiring spending are often missed, unaccounted for, under-estimated, or the implications misunderstood. This is where the sense of intuition is so important to help prioritise where the time and money should go.

The author has found that during the chaos of start-ups, there are three distinct influences upon what we do. The first is our reasoning, where for example we can reason logically “that we need business cards because our customers expect them and we must show our corporate image.” Another example may be that “we should buy the office furniture we need to be comfortable because we spend between one-third and one-half of our life at work.” Reasoning is good, but reasoning alone can make us broke, because it’s all too logical.

This is where intuition comes in. Intuition is not logical and takes a wider perspective than reasoning. Intuition decides a sense of importance and priority against all the other outstanding issues. However don’t mistake your ego for intuition. You may want to have a beautiful business card because it makes you feel good. You may want that executive chair because it makes you feel in control. But this is not intuition.

Intuition as we have seen is related to the big picture and is more concerned about your needs, rather than your wants. In a start-up situation you buy what you need, not what you want. Your ego will support your reasoning and disguise itself as your intuition – your false intuition. It works very hard to convince you, sometimes burying your intuition into the background. Be aware that it is your intuition working for you and not your ego.

Rising above your reasoning/ego combination with your big picture based intuition is a sign of personal mastery, promoting the wise old steward within you. Don’t have it any other way, go for the old wise steward over a rampant ego advising you any day. Be alert to the signs of false intuition. False intuition excites you and placates your wants. Your true intuition is concerned about your needs.

Intuition helps you determine which advice is in your best interests. That’s why it’s important to step back in pressured situations and identify who inside you is really talking. Is it your true intuition or is it your reasoning and ego ganging up on you?

Finally, intuition is a way of organizing your knowledge and applying it to situation to situation. Without intuition your knowledge carries little weight in decision making until your intuition tells you which knowledge is best to use. Sound intuition is wisdom, which is what you need in the start-up phase of your enterprise.

Summary

·        Starting a new venture is a chaotic time where it is very difficult to prioritise what needs to be done.

·        During the start-up phase intuition provides you with “personal buoyancy” which helps to see order in the chaos and do things according to priority.

·        Reasoning is sometimes too logical for start-ups.

·        There is no set formula about how to allocate your time and resources in a start- up.

·        It is very easy to mistake our ego for our intuition.

·        In start-ups reasoning may not necessarily be the best way to make decisions.

·        Rising above your reasoning/ego combination and following your big picture is a sign of personal mastery.

·       Intuition is a means of applying knowledge from situation to situation. Intuition gives weight to knowledge. Sound intuition is wisdom.

Some More Intuition and the Start-up Tips:

·       Learning to trust your intuition: Try and find situations in your life where it has been better to follow intuition rather than your reasoning. For example, you don’t do the washing or mow the lawn today because it “feels” like it is going to rain. Was your intuition sound in the cases you found?

Next Chapter: Chapter Five: Intuition and Marketing

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