{"id":2460,"date":"2015-12-17T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2015-12-17T15:12:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T23:12:57","slug":"sometimes-your-gut-is-the-best-youve-got","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=2460","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes your gut is the best you\u2019ve got."},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago I led a deal and invested in a company that looked like it had lots of promise to disrupt the women\u2019s clothing industry with special algorithms and an online store.\u00a0 But something had bothered me from the very start \u2013 unsalable inventory.<\/p>\n

You see, women\u2019s clothing is subject to fashion changes so frequently that inventory becomes obsolete quickly.\u00a0 Add to that knowing that there are three distinct buying seasons each year, and that this site was offering to mix and match sizes to fit, leaving orphan matching skirts and pants \u2013 and you can see why my concern.\u00a0 The entrepreneur\u2013\"gut<\/a>founder explained this problem away by stating that the designers and manufacturers would ship direct after we\u2019d grown to a large enough size.\u00a0 I had my doubts, but led the deal anyway.<\/p>\n

We raised six million from angel investors for this otherwise brilliant concept, and several first tier VCs followed with another thirty\u2013two million over time.<\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]<\/em><\/span> \u00a0And the company ultimately died a painful death.\u00a0 It never got its corporate arms around the inventory problem, first among other issues.\u00a0 And designers or manufacturers never did offer to ship direct.<\/p>\n

Looking back at that complete financial loss, I keep thinking of my gut response to the brush\u2013off about inventory being a problem.\u00a0 To my gut response.<\/p>\n

How many times have you had this nagging feeling that an answer to your question just didn\u2019t seem right, but that you accepted the answer because the person offering it was closer to the problem than you were?\u00a0 It is human nature to do so, deferring to the person more expert or more knowledgeable.<\/p>\n

Over the course of these insights here and in my BERKONOMICS series of books and blogs, we explore the use of tools to help overcome this natural tendency.\u00a0 Perhaps the greatest of these is use of the \u201cwhat if\u201d or \u201cwhy\u201d question streams.\u00a0 I admit that I should have taken my own advice for that one and continue much further down the chain of \u201cwhat if\u201d or \u201cwhy\u201d questions, let alone doing more due diligence with a handful of designers and manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Yes, sometimes your gut is the best you\u2019ve got.\u00a0 Listen to it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago I led a deal and invested in a company that looked like it had lots of promise to disrupt the women\u2019s clothing industry with special algorithms and an online store.\u00a0 But something had bothered me from the very … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-growth","category-hedging-against-downturns","category-protecting-the-business"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}