Building a startup from scratch is like building a budding Rebel Alliance, trying to take on a vast behemoth of an Empire.
Your allies are minimal. It feels like you could get crushed any day now. Time is running out. You don’t know who to trust. People you may have trusted to help at some point, either disappear or understandably get pulled away to tend to their own affairs. Winning feels impossible. Raising money to fund your efforts is falling on deaf ears. Convincing hearts and minds feels very Sisyphean - just when you think you’ve made progress pushing the boulder up the hill, something slips and the boulder rolls back down. The people you're trying to serve may want change, but they may be too comfortable with the status quo to do anything about it. Those who suffer the pain the most may be afraid to admit it and reach out to get involved with the cause.
There are a lot of parallels.
Yet the Rebels won in the end. Sure it’s fictional, but I wonder if there’s something we can learn from this sweeping saga. I'm going to focus on the Rebel Alliance as a whole instead of invidual talents (sorry Luke, Leia & Han). In no particilar order, these are lessons I've taken from the Rebel Alliance...
They endured.
No matter how difficult things got, they believed in the mission and ploughed ahead. Alderaan got destroyed. They lost once-hidden bases of operation. Setbacks will happen, whether they be minor or massive. They knew there would be lost battles.Yet they fought on - losing the entire cause was not an option.
They recruited the best, brightest and most passionate.
They believed that there were talented individuals out there who believed in the mission just like they did. It may have seemed impossible to find them, especially when most preferred to live more comfortable lives or had others to take care of…but they were hidden out there. The right conversation, in the right place, at the right time, led to allies they never suspected but whom they welcomed with open arms. They kept that outreach going.
They celebrated progress.
They made sure everyone in their network and wider public knew of the wins being made, to show that the mission was worth fighting for and that there was a chance of succeeding. This formed a virtuous cycle where good news resulted in more allies, which led to more progress, which led to more good news, and so on.
They were strategic and focused.
They planned and made targeted strikes against strategic targets. They didn’t attempt to fight on multiple fronts, especially early on. They only took action on what was likely to lead to the greatest progress in their mission. The rest was a distraction that would impede the cause, or worse, jeopardise it entirely. They knew that time was precious and so they didn’t dilly-dally. If they didn’t act quickly, they were finished. If they didn’t operate with precision, they were finished. Precision & speed, precision & speed.
They got creative and adapted.
Even the most brilliant plans often go awry. The Rebels got creative with their tactics and adapted them on the ground based on new information and unexpected setbacks - even if that included making unlikely allies with furry Ewoks to take on Stormtroopers and AT-STs and destroying a shield generator.
They built intelligence and took action.
Strategic planning is important, but often the greatest progress is made when unexpected windows of opportunity open. They found these windows by building up a strong intelligence network. Once an opportunity was identified, such as obtaining the blueprints to the Death Star, they took rapid and decisive action. No opportunity was squandered - the cause was too fragile to let a single one slip through the cracks. Anything that boosted the chances of success was considered critical.
They weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.
Sometimes one finds themselves in the swamps of Dagobah out of choice. Other times they find themselves in an Imperial trash compactor…not out of choice. Whatever it is, things will get messy. They did whatever it took to make progress.
They were frugal.
Money is precious. Raising any kind of money for the rebel cause was considered a blessing. It was not squandered. See previous point about precision.
They built a support network.
Fighting against the impossible feels…impossible. They took the time to invest in and cherish their support system. They shared their struggles with their closest confidants. They healed with this support, picked themselves up back again, and got ready for the next battle.
They held their hearts in the clouds, yet their eyes on the ground.
They knew from the very beginning that they had a small chance of succeeding. They didn’t fool themselves into thinking this would be easy. They didn’t lie to their allies that this would be easy. But they dreamed and dreamed, and they planned and executed. Hearts in the future, eyes on the here and now. They understood that achieving the vision would be a marathon, not a sprint. I mean, if we go by the movie timeline, it took 23 years from the birth of the Rebellion to the destruction of the second Death Star (yikes).
They made room for luck.
Yep, they got lucky. But they made their own luck. Precision & speed led to more opportunities for luck to take hold. Had they not been so precise nor so rapid around taking action, luck would have escaped them.
I imagine I’ll think of more parallels and lessons learned. Do you see anything I've missed? I may keep updating this post so that it can serve as a reminder of what it means to be scrappy and win against all odds.
With that in mind, I’ll end this with a quote from an esteemed smuggler-turned-General:
“Never tell me the odds."