I underestimated the importance of business philosophy

A lesson to my younger self aspiring to start my own business one day

I have always considered myself a product-driven person. I love the act of strategizing and executing ideas that my colleagues come up with in order to create the best possible product. Between me and my co-founder, I am the one who executes and he is the one who comes up with a vision. I didn’t actively participate in the design of our values because I was too focused on building our product.

But recently I felt lost at times without clear philosophies (and because I have always thought philosophy is something so abstract and unrealistic XD). As I have to think more about scaling a product, making customers happy, making staff happy, and empowering other managers, I realize that I often don’t have guidelines for what I am doing from product to management to marketing. There are a billion ways I can execute so which one should I pick?

In the past, I have been searching for guidelines in different business books on how to handle meetings better, come up with leadership principles, or develop marketing strategies. However, I was often confused because most business books often say similar things such as the importance of being customer-obsessed, of iterations, of beginner-mindset. How would one business be unique if it shares principles or values with many others? I often wonder. 

I realize the problem is that I often don’t understand why I should be reading these business books in the first place. Why should I learn from other companies’ philosophies? What should I do with those learnings?

In the book “Let My People Go Surfing” by Patagonia’s Founder Yvon Chouinard, he shares that when he first started the company, he read many business books to find out what philosophy would work for Patagonia. He read books about companies both inside and outside of the US to avoid a US-centric perspective to doing business. When Patagonia was going through a tough time, the first thing he did was teach classes on philosophy to his teammates before going into execution mode. They came out of these classes as a much more focused company. They realized that Patagonia as a business was driven by its high-quality standards and classic design principles. By choosing to stay focused in 1991, the team limited Patagonia’s growth to a sustainable rate. He started Patagonia to be in the business for the long run. 

I am inspired by Patagonia’s founder to search for a philosophy that works for MỞ, one that guides our product design, image, human resources, and management. 

Through the book, I learned that philosophies are an expression of values as they apply to different parts of the company. Philosophies are guidelines, keystones of a company’s approach to any project. Although they are “set in stone”, their application to a situation isn't. In a long-lasting business, the method of conducting business may constantly change, but the values, culture, and philosophies remain constant. These constant elements must be communicated to everyone in the company to create opportunities for everyone to execute without having to rigid plan or order from someone else. The flatter we want the team, the more effort we need to put in to figure out our values and philosophies. 

Photo by me and Dall-E

To sum up, here are a few learnings I have had regarding business philosophy:

• As a leader, I cannot blindly execute. I need to figure out the philosophy behind what I am doing. 

• I should read business books with a critical eye and clear purpose. I should analyze whether such philosophies would work for my business. If my goal is to build a long-standing business, I should learn from long-standing ones. Lessons from startups that want to grow fast and exit the market might not always apply. 

• Having values and philosophies help a business grow more effectively and avoid miscommunication among everyone.

I am excited to learn more about philosophy from Patagonia’s founder in the next few days and share my learnings here.