Billy Boyle Blog

When I was a kid I loved Indiana Jones. In the Last Crusade there is a scene where he enters a chamber which is booby-trapped with a series of deadly obstacles and I often think of it when I’m in meetings and discussing start-up ideas.

The first obstacle is a series of long, sharp blades that are swinging back and forth across the chamber. Indiana has to carefully time his movements and dodge the blades to make it across safely. He manages to make it through this obstacle by crawling on his belly and rolling out of the way of the blades.

The second obstacle is a room filled with letters, symbols and pictures engraved in the floor. Indiana realizes that the letters spell out a hidden message that reveals the secret to getting past this obstacle. Indiana realizes that he has to step only on the letters that spell out the name of God in order to safely cross the room. He carefully steps on the letters to spell out Jehovah (remembering that the Latin starts with an I), and manages to make it across the room without triggering any of the booby-traps.

What has this got to do with start-ups?

I often find that people worry too much about the problems yet to come (how do we scale, how do we become efficient etc) and not the problem that is front of us today (is there actually a need for the product or solution). We can’t forgot the tomorrow problems but we must remember we only get to them if we solve the today problems i.e. if we spend too much time thinking about what letter we are going to jump on in the second room we don’t notice the blade that takes our head off in room one!