Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat

Chapter 11. SPEED: Putting Ready, Fire, Aim into Your Business

In the preceding chapter, I talked about innovation. I said that to create significant second-stage growth, an entrepreneur must transform his business from a single-product company into an organization that is able to create and market many products.

In this chapter, I am going to talk about speed.

When innovation and speed are combined, the results can be astonishing.

A SIMPLE FORMULA FOR SECOND-STAGE GROWTH

To change your company from a mom-and-pop, one-dimensional business into a product-producing machine, you will have to become good not just at innovation but also at speed. It probably took several years to produce and market your first product. To take your company to the next level, you will have to move faster—at least twice as fast as you are comfortable moving right now.

I am talking about increasing the velocity of innovation. This includes the time it takes to brainstorm, develop, test, and produce new products. In Chapter 10, I talked about how you can get better at coming up with good ideas. But I also pointed out that if you don't execute good ideas quickly, they will degenerate over time.

Innovation matters. And so does speed. Combined, they give your business extraordinary growing power. Incorporate them into your company's culture, and you will have no problem breaking through the one-product, million-dollar barrier.

Let's put this in mathematical terms:

Where G equals second-stage growth, I equals innovation ...