Sense of urgency is essential for a startup. It is the driving force to move the startup forward, and it needs to strike an effective balance so that the right issues and opportunities are addressed at the right moment. The Entrepreneur Middle East writes very well about the subject from a startup point of view.
A pirate ship had the faced the same challenge. A prospective entrepreneur needed to form a plan, get it funded, find a ship, recruit a crew, provision, set sail and find and address opportunities. Sense of urgency comes naturally during a crisis, but the other stages are much more difficult.
The early stages, funding, planning and networking to get the venture under way have less to do with seamanship. Once there is a ship, and a skeleton crew, and the ship needs to be prepared for sea, the challenge of a captain to keep the crew, suppliers, merchants, and other stakeholders engaged. For a seaman, there is always the tavern by the pier, and similar each participant can too easily get distracted with something else. The result of losing that sense of urgency is leaving the docks unprepared, or late, or both. The consequences can be fatal for a voyage that starts with poor preparation.
Captains had considerable authority to keep their crew working, but much less so for outside help. If provisions didn't arrive, the captain needed to address it and press the importance of a timely delivery. That is an all too familiar issue for a modern entrepreneur: Goods and services have been ordered, but the supplier is late, as there are other pressing concerns. The captain (or the entrepreneur) has not much else to but to keep asking and ultimately complaining.
Once provisions - food, water, cordage, sails, ammunition, spares etc - are on board, the captain is in a much better position. The crew has a much bigger stake and interest in making the voyage possible, especially if the compensation is "no purchase no pay". However, as long as the ship is attached to land, and not underway, each crew member has the opportunity to desert, to leave the venture, and that they can do if the preparations do not proceed. The captain can command and ask and direct and guide, and ultimately needs to articulate the priorities and essential goals that need to be met before the ship can sail.
For a startup that is called "MVP", the Minimum Viable Product. Once that is ready, the startup can sell and is in operative mode.
For a ship it means seaworthiness. Modern definition is probably different that the language used by Mr Morgan and other privateers, but the essence is the same. The ship must be ready to face the sea, to sail to its destination, to fight the battles it can and should expect and return safely to harbor after a lucrative and profitable cruise.
Making the preparations is perhaps the hardest time from the sense of urgency point of view. The ship and the crew and preparing for events that will take place, but they are in a safe harbor. The captain and the officers of the ship can command and inspect, and remind the crew without end - but the most effective source of urgency is old sea salts.
Crew members, able seamen that have tasted storms, hunger, thirst, and battle personally are the most effective messengers about the urgency to address hull integrity, masts, rigging, provisions, guns, cutlasses, steering and any of the myriad little details that need to be in sufficiently good shape for a cruise.
The wise captain and the lucky captain has a crew with sufficient experience on board. So in reality for a ship the cultivation of sense of urgency starts at crew selection. Experience, motivation, capability, desire to set sail for a lucrative cruise are key elements, and if a captain fails to find a suitable crew, there is not much that can be done after the fact.
A startup, a company, has a similar but not the same constraint. A captain and a crew are fully committed after they leave the harbor; a startup can, at least in theory, change some members. Substantial changes - say key founders leaving - rarely work, so in that sense the startup has the same challenge as privateering ship. The crew must bee just about right for the voyage, for the venture, and if not, there is only so much a captain can do about it.
Once underway the situation changes. There is a ship to sail, watches to keep, lookout to be kept and eventually battles to be fought. While most of that is fairly tedious, it is at the same time familiar and the purpose of all activities - stay afloat, make progress, find riches - is more or less clear to everyone onboard. Captain can delegate much of the sence of urgency to the natural order of seamanship.
Similarly, once the startup is under way and has something resembling the MVP, a great external force called "The Customers" comes in and provides natural pressure on the crew. Sense of urgency comes without asking, and the captain needs to worry about speed, priorities and direction.
What if customers don't arrive? Or, what if the ship is becalmed? Similar situations, and often with dire results. Roaring forties is the similar to a ship as is a "Inside the tornado" for a startup and that is more manageable that horse latitudes and slow death by thirst - or lack of customers.
So what did we learn? Pick your crew, and make sure you find the wind - or customers. If you don't - your ship will be in trouble, and you could die, and similarly without customers your startup will fail.
