The biggest chokehold stopping B2B startups from succeeding is not what you think.

What I’ve learned from my time working both in-house and via B2B Three is that the most successful tech companies have one trait in common, the ability to make decisions fast. Decision paralysis is real and needs to be addressed.  

In an episode of Stuart Dale’s, excellent Early Stage Critical Moments podcast, Harrison Rose, co-founder of Paddle + GoodFit, lamented that in too many B2B tech startups “people get really worried about making decisions, which sounds mental when you say it out loud”. 

He goes on to say “people obsess over whether they should do A or B, and spend ages trying to gather complete data to convince themselves of the best option. Yet the likelihood is, if you’ve got to the point where you’ve worked out that A or B are options, it's probably an incremental gain difference picking either one of these paths. Having picked one, to make it successful it's the 100 subsequent decisions which iterate it towards the right thing over time”. 

It’s an alarming trend I’ve noticed that there’s a real paralysis of decision making where founders recognise there’s a problem, but are too slow to act fast enough and can be incredibly risk averse. Or worse, obsessing and delaying deployment over an incredibly small detail preventing their teams from moving forward with a decision. 

I get it, it’s your baby, but startups don’t have the luxury of time. You need to move fast in order to get shit done. 

So instead of agonising over minute details, recognise that the quest for perfection is slowing your growth and letting your competition get ahead. Founders, find your clarity and turn speed to decision into a competitive advantage.