Please God, Don’t Run Your Own Race

Of all the dime-store clichés that pass for business strategy, the one I hate the most is, “run your own race.”

Why?

• As a quote from the winner, it’s almost always survivor bias. “How’d I win? Well, I ran my own race.” Well, I’m sure most of the losers ran their own race too, but nobody’s interviewing them for pearls of wisdom.
• It’s frequently used to imply that you should ignore the competition. “Oh, I didn’t worry too much about the other runners, I just ran my own race and stuck to the plan.” The part they leave out is that the plan was designed to beat the other runners. Sticking to the plan was all about the other runners, even if reacting their every move wasn’t part of it.
• It sounds oh-so-good to say. So focused. So above the fray. So wise. So unencumbered by the competitive market. And it paints such a pretty picture: just run your own race, don’t get tangled up in distractions, and you will win.

Look, it’s not a bad response to an interview question. It’s arguably a very good one. But it’s rotten management advice. “Run your own race” isn’t strategy. It’s solipsism.

Sure, if you’re running a race recreationally, by all means run your own race and I hope you have a great time.

But if you’re in business, if you’re running a startup and trying to apply this advice, then you need to consider yourself an elite competitor. You are running to win. So, if running your own race means sticking to your race plan, and that race plan is a plan to win and one that you can execute, then go ahead and run your own race. Because, by transitivity, it is a plan to win. Which is one definition of strategy.

One thing I dislike is when great executives from great companies who were in unique situations talk about “running your own race” as if everybody should. Don’t be too focused on the competition. Just focus on customers. The rest will take care of itself.

And it will — if you’re, e.g., Tableau and it’s 2010. They had an amazing product, a great team, a greenfield market — and virtually no viable competitors. They ran their own race for a long time, and it worked. But just because they could run their own race doesn’t mean that you can run yours. If you’re the number four vendor in a high-switching cost, platform market, then running your own race is more dangerous than being an Alaskan crab fisherman.

In some deep vertical SaaS markets, I’ve found companies that can ignore the competition and run their own race. That’s either because there is no competition or it’s a handful of low-growth, bootstrapped companies in a space where everyone can achieve their objectives without smacking into each other too much. (Think: there’s enough market here for everyone.)

But if you don’t happen to be in that situation. If you’re VC-backed, you’re definitionally playing to win. If you’re PE-backed you’re either playing to win or playing to make plan. (Or win, if you define “winning” as making the plan that gets your investors a 3x in 4-6 years.)

Startups are a competitive sport. Exciting new spaces attract numerous brilliant teams to fight for the emerging market. Too many retired executives forget this, preferring to dish out nostalgia over practical advice. Markets are composed of deals and deals are often streetfights. There’s big money at stake in Silicon Valley startups and lots of management teams come playing to win. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

This is not the environment to run your own race, focus on your world-changing vision, and ignore the competition. This is the environment that calls for strong execution of competitive strategy to win deals and company strategy to overcome your largest obstacles.

Sure, you can run your own race. As long as your plan is the plan to win and within your ability to execute. Then go right ahead. Otherwise, make a new race plan.