This morning, I found myself crunching some data on pharmaceutical prices. But the fact that this was on the top of my to-do list would have been absolutely inconceivable a year ago.
That's part of the fun of startups--there's no such thing as routine. But the constantly shifting sands make it hard to plan for what lies ahead. And planning ahead is among an entrepreneur's most essential responsibilities.
Thinking long term is hard not only because the future is so ambiguous, but also because the here-and-now is so emphatic and conspicuous. In the present, everything must get done now. Even when immediate needs have been met, the future remains distant and fuzzy.
Recently, I tried to step back and assess the long-term plan--"long term" meaning two years--for Iodine, my digital health startup. This meant first taking time away from short-term demands. So, basically, I hid in our conference room for two days. It had to be done. I had to know whether we had enough capital to reach some ambitious market targets--but without a long-term plan, I couldn't estimate when those targets might come into view.
Having struggled to make room to plan more than a month in advance, I now struggled to find guidance on how to actually do it. The startup blogosphere and entrepreneur-friendly sites like Quora are full of advice about the importance of planning, but they're thin on details. What I needed was a road map that would help me consider what to plan for, and when and how to plan for it.