innovate big

startup transparency goodness

Fred Wilson of “A VC” recently posted a story about Path 101 whose team is attempting to “liveblog” their startup (NOTE: it’s not really live). I think this concept is brilliant. It’s not about starting a blog but rather engaging in genuine dialogue with others; talking with your customers rather than at them and understanding them rather than trying to guess what they want or need. Customers know a lot more than you probably give them credit for, this I guarantee. But as you know I’m a huge fan of open, direct corporate communications and, as you may also know, I’m a passionate advocate of transparency in general. Listening and learning is that first step too many skip altogether or do not taken seriously enough; they’ve nailed that part. Although their team audaciously proclaims to be anti-stealth, their isn’t too much detail on the site regarding “what” and “how”. Alas, it is only the beginning…kudos and congratulations to their team for making the plunge by getting started.

I wish them the best of luck here with respect to opening things up in a public way online. It is hard enough to take a company from concept to launch but providing a play-by-play of the process at the same time makes it that much more of a challenge. Reminds me of a recent lecture by the innovative thinker and businessman Ricardo Semler (thanks for the link Ankur). In his talk, Ricardo compares the traditional “ways of doing business” as militaristic and simply out of date. It’s worth checking out either way.

I look forward to their upcoming wiki and wonder if they will double down by opening up their books, equity, compensation and other traditionally confidential “business stuff”. Also, including recordings of their meetings (not just agendas) and some video would be nice too. What do you think?

Please help them out if you’re interested, there is a lot of work ahead but the increased transparency seems to be paying off already.