“Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.”
After Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rob a railroad company one too many times, a team of experienced lawmen are commissioned to hunt them down. Butch and Sundance are cornered and outnumbered on a ledge (at least in the movie), with seemingly two bleak options: “fight or give [up]”.
Suddenly, Butch (Paul Newman) has a great idea: jump off the ledge hundreds of feet into the rapids of unknown depth. The following conversation ensues as he tries to convince his partner Sundance (Robert Redford) who seems set on the idea of shooting it out:
Butch Cassidy: Alright. I’ll jump first.
Sundance Kid: No.
Butch Cassidy: Then you jump first.
Sundance Kid: No, I said.
Butch Cassidy: What’s the matter with you?
Sundance Kid: I can’t swim.
Butch Cassidy: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.
And they jump.
This should be familiar conversation to any entrepreneur.
At the very start of something new, there are an endless number of questions to consider anticipating the product is a success: Will you have the capacity and scalability to keep your service up with demand? Will your product be able to make a profit and be defensible from competitors? Are you violating any patents? How will you deal with people who want to use your system to spam? Will future innovations disrupt your hypothetical business model? What’s the exit strategy to provide liquidity to investors and shareholders? Can you swim?
But none of that matters if the market doesn’t want what you’re making. You’re unlikely to drown in success because the fall will probably kill you. Think about the swim, but focus on the jump.
