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- Beyond Confidence: The Power of Strategic Ambivalence in Business
Beyond Confidence: The Power of Strategic Ambivalence in Business
Benjamin Friedman
March 18, 2025
Morning beehiivcommunity!
This newsletter turns experience into lessons you can apply to your startup. As a growth partner for visionary founders, we help sharpen leadership skills and unlock growth potential.
Confidence vs. Ambivalence: Successful Founders Embrace Both
“There's a paradox in leadership of being decisive and being curious...the learnings were coming fast and in big waves.” – Julia Hartz, CEO of Eventbrite
What if the key to startup success isn't always unwavering confidence but occasional and thoughtful strategic ambivalence? Each approach has its merits.
Both overthinking strategy and rushing into action involve risk. However, when making pivotal decisions, ambivalence can help you explore options before executing confidently.
By understanding the value of ambivalence and confidence and deliberately choosing between them, you can expand your range of possibilities.
This week's post takes a confident look at ambivalence.
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Expert Tips for Startups
Quick, valuable insights from accomplished founders
From Hunches to Hits: How to Transform Your Team into a ‘Good Idea Machine’
As a founder, how do you know which product ideas are the best ones?
Don't rely on gut feeling. Instead, transform your entire team into a "good idea machine."
Focus them on a well-defined customer problem and validate solutions step by step. You'll be awash in evidence for what works.
By doing this, you'll minimize the risk of building the wrong products while maximizing the chance of building things customers love.
Isaac Krasny is the founder of KrasnyCo, a company that helps startups find product-market fit. He wrote a longer post on this topic, How to Build a Good Ideas Machine.
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