Happy Sunday everyone.

Our friend Alex Lazarow, recently published an article in the Harvard Business Review that really resonates with me. Put simply, Alex asserts that camels - not unicorns - are the most apt metaphor for startups today. Camels conserve their resources, withstand heat and stress, and adapt to survive. Alex shares that camels thrive by adhering to a couple of simple strategies: “they execute balanced growth, they take a long-term outlook, and they weave diversification into the business model.” 

The camel metaphor is a powerful one. Looking around the early-stage company ecosystem, it’s possible to spot the companies that will withstand macro and micro shocks and those that will end up careening into a ditch after having burned too much cash too early - before they figured out the important metrics that drive their core economics. It’s also possible to spot the companies - the CEOs - who experiment, who carefully consider the cost and the downside to growth decisions, and who find ways to hedge their aggressive bets. 

I find this to be a useful model to help evaluate how a CEO thinks, how a company behaves. It’s easy to dig in to the camel metaphor and see how CEOs make decisions. For example, is the company pursuing growth at all costs, or is it firing bullets before cannonballs, only doubling down on growth when they’ve developed the insights they need in order to do it confidently. Are they entering two-way doors and not one-way doors, and do they protect downside? Finding camels and helping them get the right kind of fuel, the right kind of capital, is what we’re all about.

Alex talks more about this concept in his book, Out-Innovate, published earlier this year. It’s a great read and I encourage you to pick up a copy.