What's a Vision Statement for a startup ?
How and why is it so important for your company ?
Before the 20th century this article headline would have perceived by many to a supernatural spiritual stuff which goes on the fantasy world
Thanks to the new age corporate world it has completely not only changed the common meaning for it but made it mandatory part of the day to day work life. In fact the word is being over exploited in the startup ecosystem in this rational world.
The vision statement is the most important statement , it can inspire both the internal employees and external customer to be associated with the brand/ company. It matters because it focuses on tomorrow not today. It is not set on stone for many startups ( as it keeps on changing) but one can call the definition of what the organization wants to become in future.
It is important because it describes what a company desires to achieve in the long-run,( 5 to 10 years or even longer). It depicts a vision of what the company will look like in the future and sets a defined direction for the planning and execution.
When you have a collage kid graduating from a collage and he is there to meet you 10 day old company how do you get to convince him / her to join you ?
Or when you have a industry veteran ready to spur in money into your organization, the first thing he would like to hear from you is your vision ( better not be inspired from a local movie).
The vision statement is always aspirational, better don’t be a mediocre in writing one Some of the questions vision statement should answer are
What are our hopes and dreams?
Whose problem are we trying to solve ?
What problem are we solving for the greater good?
Who and what are we inspiring to change?
What value does the company offer your customer
How is it different from your competition
All being said , some of the greatest vision statements don’t use any of the above rules yet be so effective for their achievements as they go by the principle actions are stronger than words
Google’s example of a vision statement is to the point , it’s vision is so big it doesn’t follow or answer any of the above questions
its perfect in some sense as it really tries to achieve what its vision is, but one may also argue what happens in the age of voice IOT devices where there are no touch , as we said vision statements are not set on stone so they changed google search vision to
For Example Bill Gates Microsoft Vision was to have a personal computer in every home running Microsoft software , not it no longer matter because what he had envisioned computers has got into pockets and much more
Indian Retailer Dmarts vision was very simple
but a company like Dmart too get confused between vision and mission if the document i was referring to was the right one
A company can have both internal and external vision and also they can have independent product/ project vision apart from company vision too
For example Lyft Vision is to change the way transportation works
but their one of the project vision with Aira is to create ride sharing app is different
In sum, do not obsess over your vision. Focus on the problem you started your venture to solve. Don’t draw your path. Let the journey take you where you need to go.
Keep iterating