Why incremental gain is more important than ever

The notion of overnight success is clouding the minds of the young entrepreneurs. Every now and then someone wants to quit and jump into entrepreneurship. The approach seems very clear, have a great idea and meet an investor, maybe you're lucky enough to get one to invest in your idea. Voila! Paparazzi! You hire an expensive team, create swanky offices, make crazy projections sheets, high on ego, proving your old boss that you are better than him. Only to discover that overnight success is not possible. It's not the bed of roses. It did look like that for a while but, it fades away faster than cheap colors. It's so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making better decisions on day to day basis. Almost every habit that we have, good or bad is the result of many small decisions over time. And surprisingly, how easily we forget this when we want to make a change.

We have a profound listening of incremental gains, we are often asked to think big. We have been advised not to think about incremental gains. It is always about a big leap. Before facebook became the most exciting thing or before pay pal became big, they all have followed the path of incremental gains.

The whole approach comes from the fact that to achieve the big goal, one must break it into achievable goals - planning backward, it allows you to improve at every level. Look for the smallest scope of improvement which may have been overlooked and when you put all these incremental gains together you have achieved your big goal.

But it is easier said than done. One of the big reason for the failure is not the failure itself but having failed to learn from the mistake. As a CEO or industry veteran you don't want to admit that your strategy didn't work, therefore you stop the learning right there - closed loop. You cover it up with another idea, make a new projection and get another round of funding, but sooner this bubble will burst too.

Stay frugal and think about incremental gains.

Reference: https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold