Planning in a startup

We’ve got our executive team offsite this week. We’ll be together as a management for the first time in over a year in person and I’m excited to see everyone. There’s nothing like face to face interaction.

Obviously the big thing that we’ll need to discuss are our long-term and short-term plans. I’ve learned in my 5+ years of startup world that you need to have a long-term vision for where the company wants to be, but also realize that plans will change quickly and often.

The long-term vision will always be there and won’t change much. But how we get there and our priorities are always shifting. For that reason, it is a bit difficult to do a lot of planning and forecasting as a startup. Things will never go according to plan for better or worse.

Sometimes there’s just too good of opportunities to pass up and we’ll need to shift our plans. Other times, something crazy will pop up and throw us off course and we’ll need to adjust to keep the ship heading in the right direction.

Embracing and enjoying the ups and the downs and the unpredictable journey that comes with it is part of the startup adventure.