Go slow to go fast

Let's say that you wake up one morning and decide that you want to complete an Ironman triathlon.

You book the first available run, eager to get on with it as soon as you can.

How do you think it will go? Pretty miserable, I'd reckon.

And if you keep booking them, and failing them, you might eventually get so demoralised that you completely give up your dream.

Let's go back to the moment you woke up with a dream.

What if you spent some time studying the competition, then training each individual discipline, then all of them together, slowly building up your endurance and strength.

And in the process you'd learn a lot about how to manage your own body, energy, nutrition, equipment, sleep, and so on.

Perhaps the second approach sounds slower, but it actually gets you faster to your dream.

Now imagine we apply the same thought process to the business.

One day you make a decision to enter a new market or significantly grow your market share.

You secure a massive budget and get a sign-off from the board.

What do you think will get you there the fastest?

Pouring all of the budget into a single product/project/initiative?

Or taking multiple smaller investments to find out what works best, and then focusing the rest of the budget there?

Please do let me know.