How to see the future

- Pre-Seed
- Seed
- Series B
- Series A
How to hold on to the unique characteristic of a start-up: foresight
Companies are bad at looking to the future.
It’s not something most leaders are trained for. It’s not part of standard business practice - outside of a few small examples.
Even the annual budget and strategy exercise is usually narrowly-focused and deeply flawed. Whatever brilliant ideas were posted on the whiteboard are usually washed away by whisky by the end of corporate away days.
Startups are the exception to the rule. Every startup is by definition a bet on the future. A piece of foresight backed by the founder’s will, time and cash. But as the company matures, that initial piece of foresight can be allowed to remain static. To stagnate. Unless you actively build foresight into your business practices, before long your startup can fall into the same trap as the legacy businesses you are seeking to displace.
How do you avoid this? Learn to think about the future. There’s no magic involved. It’s just another business process.
Simple Tools
There are lots of techniques to help you think about the future. In this article I will focus on just one, for near term foresight. How to scan the near horizon (2-5 years) for opportunities and threats. It’s a process called Intersections.
Intersections is based on a very simple principle: that the near future is forged at the intersection of Pressures and Trends.
Pressures
Pressures are pent up demand for change. Things that cause people pain, problems, friction. Issues that can be measured in wasted time, lost revenue, or excess staff turnover. Or frankly any other metric.
Pressures are easy to find, because people like to complain. It’s cathartic. Give people an opportunity, buy them a coffee (or a beer) and they will unburden themselves. Your customers will tell you what’s wrong with your product - or their existing supplier. Your partners will tell you why the model isn’t working. Your staff will grumble. Listen and capture. Do it constantly: it’s just good startup practice anyway. Write down the complaint, and how its impact is measured.
Trends
Trends are incoming shifts in behaviour, culture, environment, science technology and regulation that unlock change. New tools and techniques. Changes in expectations and aspirations. New laws and controls.
Trends are harder to find, but not hard once you get used to it. Find the journalists, analysts and influencers who write or speak intelligently about your market and subscribe to their output. Look at how your market works in other territories: what’s being done differently there? How do adjacent industries behave? What are governments planning? Where’s the smart VC money going in other fields?
Take notes over time. What’s the trend, and what’s the variable it might affect?
Intersections
Every six months, grab a pen and a sheet of A4 (or A3). Or a spreadsheet if you’re so inclined.
Stick your Trends down the side of a grid, and your Pressures along the top - or the other way around: it really doesn’t matter. Against each one, note the metric or variable. These can help you to make connections between the two.
Now go through each empty square on your grid and look at the Pressure and the Trend. Do they affect the same variable? Do they interact in some other way? What might the outcome be?
If you can’t see an obvious interaction, stick a cross in the square. If you can, scribble some notes. This is a quick exercise - half a day - it doesn’t need to be a complete analysis. You’re just trying to work out if there is something worth exploring.
Your Strategic To Do List
When you’ve filled in every square, go back and look at your notes. Which three - maximum five - really grab your attention? Which ones might have the greatest effect? You’re going to be doing this exercise again in six months, so don’t worry about the ones you don’t pick: if they’re important, they’ll come up again.
Take these three or five Intersections and put them on your to do list to explore further. Scope them out. Could they be an opportunity, or a threat? Should you make an intervention now? Can you? How can you maximise the opportunity?
Rinse and Repeat🔗
This exercise only works if it’s repeated. The future changes! In part because there are lots of entrepreneurs out there doing their best to change it.
Make it part of your business cycle to carve out 1% of your time, focused on the future - one day every six months. Half a day for the exercise, and half a day for the research before and after.
You’ll be more future-focused than 90% of businesses out there.