For some understandable though wrong reasons, entrepreneurs tend not to invest time in developing a vision and a mission for their startups. It’s too early for them, they are too small. They have other priorities, much more compelling. They are building the car while driving it, which is alright, as long as they know their destination.
It’s common to find vision and mission statements for large corporations. But when it comes to startups and scaleups, it’s a different story. And it shouldn’t. On the contrary, they need that clear direction more than the established, large companies. The mission describes the purpose of the company, what they offer, and who they serve with their products and services. The vision is an aspiration, the world that the company would like to help build. It’s a long term dream.
In the early days of a startup, once the MVP is achieved and first customers start testing it, it’s not unusual that one big customer will start asking for bespoken solutions, some unique adaptations. And that’s one of the beauties of start-ups, being flexible. Especially if there is some attractive revenue justifying the effort. The risk is that those developments deviate the company from the original plan, and do not result in repetitive business with other customers. “Pan para hoy, hambre para mañana”, as we say in Spanish.
Having a clear vision and mission provides a framework for decision making, and it’s always possible to check if our choices are taking us towards that future that we have painted, or moving us away from it. Changing lanes within the same highway, or even taking detours temporarily, is acceptable and in many occasions even the only option. But changing the destination itself to realize some short term benefit, no matter how big, will have an impact on the long term business, including employees, customers and shareholders. And most probably not a positive impact. Vision and mission, along with values, constitute the corporate DNA of companies and as such, they are not optional.
FMA Consilium 