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What does Romney's campaign tell us about startups?

By Michael Rice

What message does Mitt Romney's failed campaign have for startups? You and I would have been in agreement in saying not much--until this morning. I was reading Elizabeth Holmes's WSJ piece, "Romney's Screen Test Falls Flat." (Click here.) As I read, I realized that this parallels a lot of failed startups that I've known.

Mr. Romney--like many startups--seemed like he had it all together. First, everyone knows that he looked just like a President. He had the hair, the suits, the voice, the whole package. I've seen that in a lot of startups, especially with the prettier web 2.0 pages and nice feature sets. Second, Mr. Romney's campaign seemed downright professional. When he drew up his campaign, the former private equity manager "drew up a list of benchmarks and went about devising a schedule to reach those goals." Sound like a business plan to me. Everyone says you need a detailed business plan, right?

So what went wrong? In the end, Mr. Romney's campaign never ignited "passion and fire," accord to Ms. Holmes. I suppose you could contrast Mr. Romney's inability to ignite passion to the Mr. Huckabee's easy charm. Moreover, Mr. Romney assembled a "beginner's campaign" by surrounding himself with a novice management team.

The take away? Failure to ignite passion in your market kills (no matter how many millions you sink into it); make sure you've got the best management team you can get.

Full post as published by Coderights on February 08, 2008 (boomark / email).