In the old American West, “mean” refers to that gunslinger you might want to compare with Billy the Kid. Billy was a man who was extremely fast with the draw in a gunfight. Hollywood’s version of him is the likes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The exciting part of being called mean is that there’s usually the lean factor of having just one bullet. Invariably, it wasn’t just going to be about the speed with the draw, there was accuracy and certainty of hitting the target as a crucial factor.
Usually called the “fastest gun”, a gunslinger like Billy the Kid, had a peculiar technique of pulling the gun from the holster and somewhat of an intuitive awareness of speed and distance. His knowledge of the stakes was emeritus level on the ability to quiz the opponent enough to feel a guarantee of coming out alive. And that’s because that one bullet had to count. His success depended on it.
I’ve seen the N1m startup rise and the N100m startup sink. And I wonder. From close observation, I realised the business thinking was essentially different. The former sees business as the opportunity to create lasting value while the latter only saw business as a money-making venture and a means to get more of it. You think like this, you’d become no different from the opponent of Billy who couldn’t see all the stakes.
Many years ago, a good friend invited me to a meeting somewhere in Lagos. I was going to meet with former executives of the biggest advertising and marketing agency of the mid-90s to early 2000.
It was obvious, their budget was lean, but their awareness and knowledge about building a business and a brand was emeritus level. They quizzed me about the making of their #logo and my answers were satisfactory. On the day I presented the logo which as usual stems from a concise interpretation of the brief, one of the guys said something; “You are the only one that showed you understand us”.
It’s always best to launch as a lean mean startup. It helps you understand the stakes and re-enforces the determination to get it right.
