“In a startup, absolutely nothing happens unless you make it happen”
—Marc Andreessen
“Planning is valuable, though the plan is usually useless.”
—Ben Horowitz, Co-Founder Andreessen Horowitz
Quotes can be thought provoking. Juxtaposing two can send your head spinning. Horowitz’s planning statement will make any startup entrepreneur chuckle because they have experienced it. Plans change quickly because priorities change quickly and priorities change because acquisition of new information is a daily condition constantly changing your views. It's a rapid learning cycle, and if you experience it, you’re doing something right.
Yet, in order to make things happen, planning is needed, I like to call it a prioritization of the musts. And anything that must happen, you’re the one that must make it happen, and that takes both planning and execution. Despite your changing views and your daily expanding universe, you must plan it, you must do it, and you must make it happen: By throwing away yesterdays plan and recommitting to what must happen today, everyday. That is the startup rollercoaster.
