Startups should embrace the “bend, don’t break” strategy

Some NFL team defenses employ the “Bend, don’t break” strategy. It means that its acceptable to give small amounts of yardage to the other team, as long as you stop them from scoring (or keep them to a field goal). If you can make it hard for the other team to get 3-4 yards, but concede 2-3 yards each play, it makes it tough for the other team to get a first down over and over again.

As we move into the second year of Dragon Army, I realize that part of my strategy for running the company is similar to this “Bend, don’t break” philosophy. I think that’s a better way to say, “Fail fast, fail often.” I’m going to write more about that soon, but the idea of failing with companies and startups is fully embraced today, yet the goal is NOT to fail. When we “fail fast”, we’re usually talking about making mistakes, not “failing”. If you embrace failure, then by definition, failing is not failure. It’s learning.

I’ve made a great many mistakes in the first year of Dragon Army. Decisions I thought were right at the time now seem obviously wrong. But within all of that, I made sure that we were bending, not breaking. Those mistakes did not cause us to shut down the company – we took our lumps – but we came out the other side stronger and smarter.