You can’t give people more knowledge than they are willing to take. I came to this conclusion while working with university students years ago, and now I keep receiving validations to it every time I do coaching for IT start-ups.

This note is about trying to understand why so many start-ups fail to reach the stage of stable development, even after a rocketing takeoff with a thick bunch of investments put in them. Having visited a number of such companies and spoken to their management and workers, I realized that, more often than not, they simply refuse to learn from others.

Many of those young companies were started by talented, smart, lucky (and frequently freakishly young) people who’d never had any other experience than their university studies plus the start-up business they’ve been doing since graduation. Many of them tend to attract friends of similar age and mindset to management of the business, and finally all of them come to believe that their strategy is the only correct way to do this. After a year or two, the whole management group of the start-up company gets ‘blocked’ from any outward influences. Whatever new idea, proposal or critical remark they receive, they are reluctant to even consider it, because– “well, because it is not the way we do business, that’s why!”

They may be right in their conviction, but only to some degree. Well, the same thing may be true for the large, well-established companies, but making mistakes is not as dangerous when you are beefy and strong.

Whenever I face such reluctant attitude, I can’t help remembering Frank Sinatra’s My Way. Well, I sincerely wish them to have lots of good luck. Really, what else can I do?