50. Bad startup advice creates cargo cult thinking. Learn to spot and avoid it.

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I am concerned about a lot of the startup advice I see out on the internet. Much of the advice is sound, and almost all is well-intentioned, but I think that a significant fraction is problematic. The troubling advice is typically in the form of a recipe or template for success. It tells founders that if they take specific actions, follow a given pattern, or use a particular pitch deck, they will succeed. I often see this guidance in interviews with extremely successful founders. The implication is that if you do the same things they did, you will have a similar outcome.

“Startups are not like snowflakes; they are far more diverse. ”

I worry that these kinds of guidance are too rigid and replace thinking with mimicking. Startups are not like snowflakes; they are far more diverse. Tips that apply to one company may be inappropriate or harmful to another. I suspect that this kind of advice often leads founders into cargo cult thinking. Since many of you might be unfamiliar with cargo cults, I will take a quick detour to explain them before discussing how the concept applies to startups.

Cargo Cults

Cargo cults happen when technologically advanced civilizations make contact with less developed cultures. The goods and capabilities of the high-tech society appear magical or godlike to the low-tech observers. The best-known examples, and the origin of the name, happened on isolated Melanesian islands in the pacific during the Second World War. The Japanese and Allies established bases on many islands which had little or no previous contact with outsiders. The militaries built airfields, buildings, and docks. They brought in soldiers, vehicles, machines, electronics, uniforms, weapons, supplies, and vast quantities of food. Much of this literally fell from the sky, delivered by planes landing at the fields or by airdrop.

The islanders saw all this, interacted with the outsiders, and received canned food, machetes, and other goods in return for their help. The vast quantities of goods flooding in totally transformed the island economies.

Then, after a few years, the war ended, the bases closed, and supplies stopped arriving. This devastated the islanders, who had started to depend on the flow of “cargo.” They tried to restart the flow by imitating the actions of the militaries. They saw airplanes, control towers, radios, and soldiers marching around in uniform carrying rifles. They reasoned that if they did those things too, they would also receive the supplies. These activities took on a religious character. Some of these “cargo cults” still exist today.

Cargo Cult Startup Advice

Much of the startup advice I see takes the form of pointing to an example of outstanding success and saying, “they won because they did A, B, C. If you do those same things, you will have similar success.” Often this is implied rather than stated explicitly, but in the comments, I see many people who have taken that exact message. To me, that seems exactly the same kind of thinking that created the cargo cults. We don’t know if A, B, and C, together or individually, caused the success or if some other X, Y, and Z actions were actually responsible. Further, there is no reason to assume that, if it worked for them, it will also work for you.

In many cases, these companies were successful because they discovered some new approach or opportunity. When they followed their path, the fields were lush and untrodden. Years later, many companies are using that path. Ads that were cheap are now expensive. Techniques that were fresh and exciting are now stale and boring.

I first started thinking about this issue while looking at pitch deck templates. They are generally attractive and have all the standard slides an investor would expect to see. All the founder needs to do is replace the template information with their own. However, if you have read my five-step process for creating pitch decks, you will know I am against that approach. It completely fails to take advantage of your company’s unique strengths and competitive advantages. Using the template will create an attractive and professional “looking” deck, but probably not something ideal for fundraising.

Once I started looking for prescriptive startup recipes, I saw them everywhere. A blog might suggest that every company should strive to create network effects. A podcast might imply that every B2C company should pursue a freemium model, which is not to say that these are bad ideas, just that they might not be appropriate for your company.

I think templates, recipes, and paint by numbers advice are popular because they are easy and don’t ask you to think. One of the ways I apply The Boot is pushing founders to go deep with their analyses.

Models not Recipes

Models can be far more robust than recipes, but they require understanding. Scientists rarely talk of theories or models being right but rather ask whether they are useful in a particular situation. Since I was an astrophysicist, I’ll use an astronomy analogy. The heliocentric model has a bunch of planets moving around a star in elliptical orbits. That is a useful model for our solar system. It can tell you where Mars will be next year, so you can reliably send a probe there to collect data. However, if we tried to use that in a binary star system, it would be a mess. Planets could orbit one star or the other, or both. A model would need to reflect the details of that particular star system to be useful.

Also, recipes tend to be brittle. If there is a typo in the instructions, an inexperienced cook will ruin the dish by doing what they are told. If they don’t have precisely the right ingredients or implements, they are stuck. A chef understands why the recipe works, how it can be adapted, and when it will fail. You need to have that kind of understanding of your business and approach to the advice you see on the internet.

I encourage founders to always start from first principles. Consider the specifics of your business and strategy before adopting any template. Who are your customers? What value do you provide? Are there network effects? What barriers to adoption will you face? How do your customers discover solutions like yours? What influences impact their buying decisions? The answers to these and countless other questions determine which templates or models you should experiment with. When you consider a template, look at the extent to which your company matches the explicit or implicit assumptions behind it.

This is not to suggest that templates, recipes, and case studies are bad. They contain mountains of useful information. They can help you avoid mistakes and expose possibilities that might never have occurred to you. Often some elements of the guidance will apply while you must discard other parts. Always treat rigid formulations and advice with suspicion. Ask if they are appropriate for your company at this exact point in time, or are they a cargo cult in disguise?