Constraints Are Gifts

Here’s the dictionary definition of constraint:

Constraint (noun): something that limits or restricts someone or something.

Most people view constraints as a negative thing.

They either fall victim to these constrains

and revise their ambition downwards,

or confront these constraints head-on

and look for ways to eliminate them.

Constraints are neither good nor bad.

Every system always has one.

Your business model is no different.

And there is a third way to view constraints:

To embrace your constraints AND still find a way to achieve your goal.

Rather than downsizing or chasing after investors,

Southwest Airlines leveraged their constraints

and turned themselves into the most profitable airline in the industry.

Facebook’s carefully orchestrated staged rollout strategy

that I often attribute as a big contributor to their success,

also started as a constraint – one of money.

Mark Zuckerberg did not have the money or investors

for a full public launch while he was at Harvard.

So he limited Facebook’s rollout to just 3 schools:

Stanford, Yale, and Columbia University.

Even Google’s minimal search box homepage

was not intentionally simple by design

but a constraint of Larry Page’s coding ability at the time.

So rather than viewing your constraints as limitations,

embrace them as gifts and look for ways to

leverage them to your advantage.