This document provides guidance on how to make good decisions to support company growth. It recommends recognizing but ignoring fear related to decisions, ensuring enough but not too much information is available, and trusting intuition. It also advocates for speed in product development, hiring, and strategic planning. The document suggests applying reflection for high-specificity, high-cost decisions, imitation for low-specificity, high-speed decisions, and experience for dynamic, low-cost decisions. It analyzes where the company has made better decisions through imitation, experience, and reflection compared to past mistakes. The overall message is that making many good decisions is key to driving company growth.

1. How to grow right
// How to make decisions
Wayra Prague, 20 May 2014

2. Small founder toolkit for making decisions
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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3. “
”Growth is the single defining
characteristic of startups.
-- Fred Wilson

5. What I won’t be talking about
! How to operate through the different growth phases
(idea – product/market fit – growth – company building)
! Book: Steve Blank
! How to deal with the psychological stress while growing
! Book: Ben Horowitz
! How to maintain >100% growth rates
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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6. May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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Growth from the driver’s seat =
Making many good decisions

7. Making…

8. Making decisions
! Recognize and ignore any fear related to the decision
! Make sure you have enough but not too much information
(40-70%)
! Trust your gut
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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9. …many…
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
9
…many…

10. Speed wins
Bad
Good
Product
Take
8
months
to
release
major
feature
Rapid
A/B
Tes9ng
People
Hire
fast,
fire
slow
Hire
slow,
fire
fast
Company
Annual
strategy
Quarterly
OKRs
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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11. …good decisions

12. “
”By three methods, we may learn wisdom:
First, by reflection, which is noblest;
second, by imitation, which is easiest; and
third by experience, which is the bitterest.
-- Confucius

13. Where to apply which decision type?
Company-­‐
Specificity
Need
for
speed
Dynamic
Efficiency
Cost
of
failure
Imita>on
/
Learning
Low
High
Low
High
Reflec>on
/
Analyzing
High
Low
High
High
Experience
/
Doing
High
Low
High
Low
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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14. Where we have made bad decisions
People
Product
Company
Imita>on
Culture
Applying
hotel
UX
to
ac9vi9es
space
Strategy
Reflec>on
Organiza9onal
structure
8
months
to
release
one
major
feature
Opera9ons
Experience
Finance
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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15. Where we have made better decisions
People
Product
Company
Imita>on/Learning
• Organiza9onal
structure
• Training
A/B
Tes9ng
ideas
• Opera9ons
• Finance
Reflec>on
Culture
Give
customers
what
they
want
Strategy
Experience
Hire
&
Fire
A/B
Tes9ng
May 20, 2014
GetYourGuide AG
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16. Make
Many
Good
Decisions

17. Good luck
Bad decisions make good stories