If you ask 10 strategy consultants, you’ll likely hear a familiar pattern:
-
Find some customers
-
Work out what they want
-
Give it to them
It sounds simple and intuitive—and for startups and greenfield ventures, it often works beautifully.
But what if you’re not a startup? What if you're a decades-old enterprise with legacy systems, deep-rooted culture, and hundreds (if not thousands) of people already in motion?
That’s when the customer-first mantra can become a trap.
Why Startups Start Outside
Startups operate with a blank slate. They must look outward. Their primary strategic imperative is to find product-market fit.
They’re agile, still forming their identity, and not yet constrained by scale. Their early strategy is about discovery—trying, failing, and iterating toward something the market values.
But Mature Organisations Face Different Constraints
For more established businesses, it’s a different story. Your organisation is already shaped by:
-
Your history: Past decisions, successes, and failures
-
Your culture: Deeply embedded ways of thinking and working
-
Your capabilities: What you’ve built up over time
-
Your commitments: To customers, staff, investors, systems, and stakeholders
Starting with "what the customer wants" without grounding that in who you are can lead to:
-
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater
-
Spreading too thin across too many directions
-
Losing your distinctiveness
-
Diluting core strengths
-
Internal misalignment between teams
-
Competing on price as a commodity
In short: trying to be everything to everyone can mean you end up being nothing special to anyone.
There is an old Irish Proverb: "If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here". Startups aren't starting from anywhere. Mature organisations definitely are, and so it matters.
A Better Strategic Question
If you’re a mature organisation, start with this:
What are we uniquely well placed to do?
Then ask:
How can we put that into service of real, valuable needs in the market?
This doesn’t mean ignoring your customers. It means aligning what you do best with where you can lead, not just follow.
It’s not less customer-focused. It’s more strategically coherent.
Strategy Is About Focus
Ultimately, strategy is about making choices. Bold, focused ones.
Yes, the market matters. But you also need to understand your organisation’s identity and strengths. When you align the two, you unlock competitive advantage that others can’t easily replicate.
So if you're crafting strategy in a mature organisation, don’t reach for the startup playbook by default.
Write your own.
Develop and Execute your Strategy with StratNav
Want a platform that helps you build strategy that's both externally relevant and internally coherent?
👉 Try StratNav yourself for free
👉 Schedule a demo of StratNav
👉 Book a call to discuss how to apply this in your organisation
