More than anytime in your life, possibly in history, you are presented with choices in almost everything you do.  Its no different in business.  Customers are more squirrely than ever.  They want the latest thing yesterday and fads pass in an instant.

So how do you mitigate this choice risk?  Make small, marked decisions and don’t anticipate wildly far off into the future.  This sort of goes along with my views on  “Happy Path” development, but I think it goes deeper into business fundamentals.

Lay the groundwork for future business growth, but don’t build it out fully until the need is there. If you THINK you are going to have a nice niche in another space with what you’re doing now, great. Get revenue first, analyze your business metrics and whether it still makes sense, THEN start to tap into what might be in that other space.

Customers have choice, and its tough to forecast what they will choose tomorrow, much less next year.  Choice is also a behavior., and behavior’s are hard to change. So swim downstream by building incrementally and don’t anticipate years into the future. Whether your involved in a startup or work for a company, lay the groundwork for accomplishing the future, but be patient, smart and incremental in tackling things you think might be successful.