What would it look like?  How would the caveman way of thinking apply to running a new small business?  Well, let’s take a look:

• Was there ever a fat, lazy caveman? I’m sure there was, but he probably didn’t stay alive long enough to start a business. By analogy the paleolithic startup model would be lean, mean, and efficient.
• When living in a cave, basic survival necessities make themselves very obvious. Being cold and hungry will not only kill you after a while, they are also excellent motivators. A smart caveman would have learned from this and applied the same lesson to his business. Needs come first. You can work on your fancy rock engravings later.
• If you’re going to make it as a caveman, you need to know how to hunt. This means leaving your comfortable cave and taking on some risk and hard work to bring home the meat. The same goes for money. The funding won’t come to you, so you need to sharpen your spear and get out there.
  
• While our cave-dwelling hero is out hunting moose, someone else is holding things together back home. Back then, this would be the cave woman. I’m not saying you should get one of those, but it is important to have support and division of labor. Ideally, designers and developers should do their work while somebody else is out hunting for capital.
• If one thing is essential to the caveman, it is fire. To light that fire, you need a spark. A good idea is the basis of that spark for your fire. Once you have it, you need to watch it and feed it so that it keeps burning and keeping you alive.
• If you did not increase the size of your cave family, you would go extinct. This is why they did not bother with birth control. You, too, can not afford to kill off ideas before you check their potential.
• Back in the stone age, you never knew when another tribe would show up with their axes to fight for your best hunting and gathering territory. But, if you had anything worth taking, you could be sure that they would be there eventually. Startups are the same. If you’ve found a promising niche, competitors will get there, and you’d better be ready to defend yourself.
• The common thread here is that there’s nothing like living on the edge of survival to make you focused. Therefore, our caveman entrepreneur would doubtlessly run a very efficient and lean startup. Things would get done on time, and on budget, because there’s no arguing with caveman issues. Once the firewood is gone it is gone, saber-toothed tigers don’t wait, and that’s just the way it is.

  Are you running your startup like a caveman?