There is an energy and an optimism in the eyes of a startup team that's nearly impossible to replicate. Despite working ridiculously long hours, sacrificing time, family, money, and pretty much all of the things that most of us hold holy in life, a startup team produces a euphoria that only they can fully understand. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.
When it comes to starting something from scratch, the feeling that results is unmatchable. The attitude, the hunger, the passion, the ability to move and adapt instantly, the willingness to take risks, and the sheer energy and enthusiasm you have in a startup is as good as it gets. When you lose that, you lose the ability to grow, and that will be the greatest challenge to success and threat to innovation.
I've often struggled to put a name to the unique chemistry of a startup. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has, and it captures beautifully all of the trials, tribulations, and magic of the entrepreneurial spirit. He calls it being a day one company. He is so passionate about the importance of staying a day one company, the building he works in is called day one!
According to Bezos, a day one company's obsessive goal should be to avoid becoming a day two company. In his own words, "Day two is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why [for Amazon] it is always day one."
According to Bezos, "Day One" means that Amazon will always act like a startup. To act like a startup, Bezos requires Amazon employees to do these four things:
Be obsessed with the customer
Focus on results over process
Make high quality decisions quickly
Embrace external trends quickly
I read this to mean always be innovating, because the alternative is to go out of business. To Bezos you either act like a startup or die.