WELCOME MESSAGE
Hello and welcome to the Start Up Simulator – you are about to enter an immersive experience designed to help you explore the Narratives, Assets, Boundaries, and Constraints, related to an ACTUAL start up company.
You’ll be playing as Skye Jordan, a smart and well educated startup founder who is dedicated to bringing high quality coaching to the startup industry.
As you move through the simulation you’ll be given a series of choices, these will decide your fate, the fate of your organization and the fate of the startup community in general.
SO CHOOSE WISELY
And may the funding be forever in your favor!!!
NOTE – You can always hit BOARDROOM to return back to the starting screen.
Start Screen
BEGIN
Board Room
Hello Skye,
Welcome to your office.
Well office might be too strong of a word for it. You’re basically in the room you share with your boyfriend, but you’ve got other things on your mind.
Today you have a very important board meeting.
At this board meeting you’re going to present about the future of the company. As you reflect on all the things that have happened so far, you have a sense that the plan you present to the board today will have a HUGE impact on the very future you hold so dear.
What are you going to focus on?
Company Narratives
Company Constraints
Company Assets
Bail on the Board Meeting and Fly to Bali
Company Narratives
Ok Skye You’ve chosen to focus on Company Narratives
Like most companies that are pretty new, you’re not entirely sure you have strong narratives. But you figure looking at them couldn’t hurt. So you make a list of the top ‘narratives’ that seem to be getting in the way of your innovation.
Then you review them as you sip your morning coffee.
Which of the following narratives would you like to focus on?
Most coaches aren’t very good
OPEN
You think about it and realize your biggest problem is that most coaches aren’t very good. This is very apparent from the coaches you have in your network. There’s a lot of eagerness, but not much quality. It seems like most of the coaches just want to get paid and don’t actually have what it takes to be successful.
THAT SUCKS!!
While it sucks that you have this narrative, you’re not really sure what to do about it. You decide you have a choice, you can either try to make coaches better or you can just bail on coaches entirely which one would you like to pursue?
Bail on coaches
Think about how you could build the perfect coach
We offer a high integrity product
OPEN
Part of why you love your work is the high level of integrity you have for the work you do.
You know you’re one of the best coaches around and you have a small group of great coaches to rely on. But how they heck are you going to scale this thing!!!!
Everywhere you look you see other coaching companies using a marketplace model to match coaches and companies, but you ALSO know that the level of the coaching they provide is mediocre at best.
It’s a tough thing to figure out, but you start to wonder if there’s a way to rewrite the narrative you have around what you offer to clients.
You decide you can either focus on coaches as the primary problem or you can try to focus on the high touch service you offer.
What will you focus on?
Bail on coaches
High touch service
CompanyConstraints
Ok so you’ve decided to focus on company constraints. And BOY are there a lot of constraints.
You’re a rather small start up and you don’t have many resources.
On top of that the economic environment is shifting quickly.
While your founder mastermind groups have grown a few of your VC partners seem a bit more shaky.
You look over the entire landscape and decide there are 3 BIG constraints to worry about.
Your limited bandwidth, your small team, and your high touch service model.
Which will you choose?
Your Bandwidth
OPEN
Ok you chose your limited bandwidth.
Boy is this an issue.
Your inbox is full of hundreds of emails. You have meetings back to back. Your sister broke her arm and needs you to come help her out. Not to mention that you hired a new marketing person who seems to be struggling.
It feels like as soon as you carve out some space for yourself something else catches on fire that needs your attention. Most nights you fall into bed and fall asleep before you even have time to process your day.
It’s honestly more than a bit overwhelming.
But you take a deep breath and decide you have 3 options.
Which will you choose?
You can just accept things as they are
You can work on time blocking to improve your efficiency
You can figure out a way to deliver coaching at JUST the right time
Small Team
OPEN
Small team is an understatement.
Your team in TIIIIIII NEEEEEE
It’s really just you and one other person.
And marketing person you hired JUST QUIT!!! UGH!!!
Gen z is the worst.
ok ok that’s probably not fair
Anyway now you need to figure out what you’re going to do about the small team.
You don’t have a huge budget but you do have some options.
You could move to SE asia and try to cut expenses
You could find a way to leverage technology
Or you can push your team really hard and try to make it work.
High touch service
OPEN
You are a white glove service.
Like super white.
Like ‘white out on a blank piece of white paper in the snow’ white.
You can’t imagine any way to get around it.
The clients you do have pay for a VERY high level of service.
But even though the idea seems crazy you decide trying to shift it might be worth a shot.
So you think of some options:
You could figure out a way to have founders deliver coaching to one another
You could accept that high touch just doesn’t scale and focus on quality
You could go out and recruit more high quality coaches to improve your capacity
Company Assets
Alright, you’ve decided to focus on the positive and see if you can find new ways to leverage some of the existing company assets.
Which really makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
But because you’re a small start-up and your whole team is remote you don’t have many ‘fixed’ assets to work off of. But you do have a few things you can consider.
You’ve got
Your Reputation
10 Affiliated Coaches
30 Core Clients
Which one will you pick?
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Your Reputation
OPEN
So you’re not super famous. And if you’re honest you probably won’t ever be like ‘famous’ famous. In fact you’re not really even that into the idea of being famous.
But if you’re going to change start up culture it’s important to have your ideas spread.
Luckily, you have a pretty good standing in the industry and while this probably isn’t the easiest thing to leverage you do see some possibilities.
Commit to getting famous
Do some more PR?
Hope your profile grows
30 Core Clients
OPEN
It’s not thousands of customers but your 30 core clients really are what your business is all about. You love watching them grow and develop as leaders.
You find them incredibly inspiring on so many levels.
The challenge of course is that spending time with them eats into time to do other things. If only you could figure out how to better use them as an asset.
After some consideration, you’ve come up with 3 ideas:
Convince your clients to give your more referrals
Turn your clients into partners/investors
Just focus on your current clients and worry about the rest later
10 Affiliated Coaches
OPEN
Sure you’ve got a network of 80 coaches but most of them are sort of just OK. Luckily you DO have an incredible group of 10 coaches you can really stand by.
And honestly with what passes for coach training out there 10 is pretty amazing.
Still you can’t help but wonder if there might be a better way to push your constraints when it comes to these coaches. Maybe there’s a better way to use them?
You do have a few ideas
Be happy with what you have and hope they don’t leave
Start a VC firm led by coaches so they can make founder health truly essential
Turn those coaches into a dream team board
Just accept that most coaches aren’t that great
<
FAME – I’m gonna live foreverrrrr!!!
OPEN
You write an AMAZING TED TALK, it rocks the VC and coaching world.
Your dedication to doing something truly innovative has paid off. You said EFF YOU constraints and totally rocked it.
You still deliver coaching but you have many people who are championing your ideas. Some of which you’ve never even met. This approach used your constraints of time and staff as well as key partnerships as an asset to be effective.
Now instead of simply delivering coaching yourself you’ve inspired a new coaching movement in the founder space.
Your colleagues are AMAZED at how much impact you had and you did it without even having to grow your company to a large size.
Slowly over time you see the entire founder landscape shift and you know you played a major role in that.
What you’ve done is really incredible. You feel super proud of your work!!!
Good work!!!
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
VICTIM
OH NO!!!! You have fallen into a victim mindset, from here your options are kind of limited. You can either choose to become a run of the mill consulting and coaching company or you can bail on your values, PUSH HARDER, and hope your hard work pays off
Which one are you going to choose?
Become a run of the mill consulting company
OPEN
You decide to become a run of the mill coaching and consulting company. You change your name to CoachCo or CoachesRus, you can’t even remember really.
Your brand is more vanilla than double vanilla ice cream.
Your company is more basic than the ABC’s.
You spend your days writing RFPs for mid level managers and HR departments and your trainings end up being more watered down than the Pacific Ocean without the salt.
You make a decent living and retire to Vermont. Where you drink pumpkin spice lattes and shop at LL Bean.
But you always wonder what might have been.
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
Bail on the model and lower your standards
OPEN
You wake up in an empty house all alone. The past 30 years feels like a total blur. You had big dreams but you let them go. You ended up becoming a bit of a workaholic.
You pushed yourself really hard everyday working 60 hours a week, by the time you retired you were all alone, your husband having left you for another woman and taken the kids with him. You wanted to fight for custody but you kept missing your court dates because you were too busy with work.
As you stare down at your glass of Merlot, you wonder if you’ve made the right choices or not. You feel a bit lost, but then again, that’s the game right?
You wonder what it might be like if you had another chance. You remember back to that day in the boardroom long ago.
THE END
Boardroom
NEUTRAL
Hmmmm it looks like you’ve ended up in a NEUTRALIZING mindset, it happens, while you’re not totally limited in your options, you’re sort of playing not to lose, which can make winning REALLY TOUGH, but the game isn’t over yet.
You can either choose to stay small and grow slowly or become a 1-1 coach. Both of these will basically have you avoid most of the constraints you experienced in your business.
Which one would you like to choose?
Stay small and grow slowly
OPEN
So you’ve decided to stay small and grow slowly.
You generally enjoy your work but a challenger comes into the space with some revolutionary technology that truly changes the game forever. You end up using their proprietary software and it’s really incredible. You’re sort of amazed at how they found a creative solution to some of the constraints of time, quality of coaches, and money you had.
You’re also blown away by how they leveraged their assets of reputation in the space.
At the end of the day you like your career but you wonder if you could try again.
You can either return to the board room and give it another shot or you can retire, what would you like to do?
Boardroom
Retire
Become a 1-1 coach
OPEN
So you decide to become a 1-1 coach, you have a fulfilling life, but you get the sense this isn’t what you were made to do. You work with a handful of clients that are truly inspiring, but from time to time you read about a founder who gets booted by their board for bad behavior. You wonder if you quit too soon?
Sure it’s enjoyable but something always feels like it’s missing.
You can either return to the board room and try again or you can retire, what would you like to do?
Boardroom
Retire
TRANSFORM
Woo hoo!!! Man you are an innovative human being, it looks like you are in a transformational mindset, which means you are ready to really innovate your industry.
What aspect of your industry would you like to innovate?
Develop a new way to deliver
OPEN
You gather your team together and develop a TOTALLY new way to deliver coaching. You combine state of the art technology with a novel approach to improving the coaching experience.
You also figure out how to deliver coaching RIGHT when founders need it the most.
You were able to do this by partnering with a company to develop a founder dashboard that helped you as a coach know when the most important interventions needed to be made. This novel combination of better help on the spot support technology combined with high level coaches allowed you to use your partnerships with AI companies as well as leveraging your constraints around time, staff, and a limited number of quality coaches.
Slowly over time you see the entire founder landscape shift and you know you played a major role in that.
What you’ve done is really incredible. You feel super proud of your work!!!
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
Discover a new resource
OPEN
Before you were incredibly limited by two key resources: time and good coaching.
But you found a way to leverage both past founders and current founders to help you maximize the time you have. You did much more than just form some founder groups, you started a movement inside the founder space where coaching is now seen as ESSENTIAL to leadership.
You’ve created an entirely new mini-ecosystem that’s having a big impact on the other ecosystem. And you did this by finding a new way to use your assets of the incredible founder network you created.
This enables you to work at a much higher level and support WAY more founders than you had originally anticipated. Which is INCREDIBLE!!!
Slowly over time you see the entire founder landscape shift and you know you played a major role in that.
What you’ve done is really incredible. You feel super proud of your work!!!
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
Discover a new way to have impact
OPEN
When you started your journey you only saw one way to have a MAJOR impact on the founder space.
But you developed a new approach that’s highly effective.
Instead of simply delivering coaching as a company you’ve created a process and some intellectual property that you can now license to other companies to use. This approach used your constraints of time and staff as well as key partnerships as an asset to be effective.
You still deliver coaching but you have many people who are championing your ideas. Some of which you’ve never even met.
Now instead of simply delivering coaching yourself you’ve inspired a new coaching movement in the founder space.
Your colleagues are AMAZED at how much impact you had and you did it without even having to grow your company to a large size.
Slowly over time you see the entire founder landscape shift and you know you played a major role in that.
What you’ve done is really incredible. You feel super proud of your work!!!
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
Chat Bot
OPEN
Well you figured out coaches are a waste of time, instead you decide to develop a CHAT BOT called TOKU-2000. You raise a HUGE round of funding and develop a state of the art AI robot. TOKU-2000 is considered the most attractive and effective coaching bot of all time, you have a huge exit and retire in luxury GOOD WORK!!!
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
Bali
OPEN
Well you decided start up life isn’t for you, so you’ve decided to fly to Bali.
You enjoy your time there, take up yoga, and begin dating an attractive surfer.
You find inner peace and bliss deciding that material gain isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be.
Though as you sit on the beach
you wonder what your life might have been like if you’d chosen another path.
You listen to the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore. As you drift off to sleep.
THE END
Return to the Boardroom
Special thanks to @ethansmith @rachellancaster @christinalang and @ericsnowden for your support!!!
A Note From the creator –
I analyzed a company I work closely with to see what some of their limitations were. I considered how each constraint could be treated as an opportunity to transform, neutralize, or become stuck with. I then created a complex matrix to figure out how to build this. Then I built a TINY version of it because #sleep.
It was fun! and also super hard. But I’m glad I got it to work.
I also remembered why I’m not a developer.
Thank Buddha for developers really!
Love,
Toku
PS You can check out my MIRO Board here –
https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_khWHPww=/
The Raw ‘code’ here –
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EjvCuVPwShOn2mJiAkr1kxT9uVYVE5CS2VGuewTIkKQ/edit?usp=sharing
And the spreadsheet I used to make links etc –
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15jd_p1Ed2Bx5aoNr8KTqD-H66MjZBxnGLoNsUya8Z9M/edit?usp=sharing