Business

Overview

Business is the discipline of designing and operating a commercial entity such that it pays for itself, employs people fairly, and serves customers well — usually all three at once, and usually under constraints. In this wiki it is treated as a medium alongside construction and software: another material with its own properties to respect.^[1]

For the active practice of building a business — the verb — see Building Businesses. For the identity of the person who runs and scales them, see Growth Operator.

Properties of the Material

• People. The most important and most volatile material in the mix.
• Capital. Has tolerance for some risk, none for sustained loss.
• Customers. Honest like water — they always tell you when something doesn't work, eventually.
• Time. Compounds. Both ways.
• Reputation. Slow to build, fast to lose. Behaves like a load-bearing wall.

Burbridge in the Medium

Burbridge works in the business medium as both founder and growth operator, and treats the discipline with the same standards as a finish carpentry job: the joints matter, the measurements have to be right, the result should look good both up close and from across the room.

"A business that works is engineering. A business that doesn't is bad engineering wearing a strategy deck." — Burbridge

Common Failure Modes

• Spreadsheet ignored. If the math doesn't work, the business doesn't work. The math wins eventually.
• The "while you're at it" hire. Hiring to solve a process problem, then having a process problem and a salary.
• Optimism in lieu of operations. Hope is not a procurement strategy.
• Founder bottleneck. Every decision routes through one person; the team becomes a queue.
• Loss of craft. The thing that made the business worth starting becomes the thing the business no longer protects.

References