Resiliency and Taking a Broadside
Battleships throughout history were made to withstand significant amounts of enemy fire through a unique method of armoring called “All or Nothing” . The most important areas of the ship got the lion’s share of the armor and as a result these areas were able to take multiple broadsides during engagement and the ship was able to continue functioning. From the HMS Dreadnought class , to the RMS Nelson class to Japan’s Yamato class and finally to the USN’s Nevada class boats these ships were built to be virtually unsinkable.
I tend to liken my company to a battleship. We move fast in terms of growth but not as fast as some of the other go-go companies in the community. We’ve taken a few significant blows over the years but we’ve armored up in a way that these hits haven’t impeded our ability to keep moving. Our armor includes steady cash flows, customer revenue diversity, low churn, managed expenses and focused product/market fit.
We took a solid broadside earlier this week. This one took the form of one of our key engineers telling us that he is leaving for another gig. It sucks but it wasn’t a complete surprise. I know of a number of other founders who have had to deal with a similar issue over the past couple of months. Regardless it was a hit on our engine room. I didn’t think we were going to deal with this kind of problem for a while longer. After running through the classical self-doubt/questioning phase of “Could I pay him more money?” or How do I get him to change is mind?” or “What will the rest of the team think?” I switched over to damage control and repair mode mindset. We are going to use this as a opportunity to re-align the team and bring a few different types of bodies onboard.
A year ago this would have been a much more impactful event for the business. Today it is a problem but it wont be enough to sink us. He’s got meaningful equity in the business so he is incentivized to help even after he is gone. He has given us a month of notice because there is mutual respect between us all as a team. We have the funds to handle a employment exercise. We’ve got resources that are ready to join the business in a FTE mode already and our new sales hire is fairly stable and producing on his own at this point. We keep engines on at full, pound out the dented deck plate and keep on keeping on.
This is the resiliency of a well built business. Take a hit. Say “insert expletives here”. Assess damage. Repair. Continue the mission.
