The world’s largest taxi firm, Uber, is buying cars. The world’s most popular media company, Facebook, now commissions content. The world’s most valuable retailer is now Amazon, and has more than 350 stores. And the world’s largest hospitality provider, Airbnb, increasingly owns real estate. Things change.

A startup is a journey of questions with as yet unidentified answers. Most startups fail because they never find true enough answers to succeed. Startups succeed when the founders are focused on finding the truest answers to their most important problems.

What is the best way to engineer a product that will delight customers? What is the most efficient channel to get that product into your customer’s’ hands? What is the most effective way to scale up that model to maximize the impact and commercial success of the business? Who are the right leaders to help achieve these goals?

If the decisions were easy, someone would have made them already. The conflict exists because the answers aren’t obvious. It’s in the conflict that the right answers emerge. You have to lean into the conflict to win.

Conflict Failure Modes

Avoiding the Conflict
Ego
Strong Personalities vs. Wall Flowers
Softening The Edges
Revert to Mean

How to Embrace Conflict
It’s easy to say that a company should embrace conflict and far harder to do so successfully. Ultimately, engaging conflict is among the most significant cultural challenges for startups, but also among the most important.

Reframe Conflict As The Search for Truth
Call out Objectivity and Subjectivity
Be Hard on Problems, Not People
Debate, Don’t Fight
Gauge Magnitude of Beliefs
Consider Hierarchy & Roles

At Some Point, The Debate Must End
Truly convincing or being convinced of the best decision for the company is the optimal path to resolve a conflict, but it is not the only way. Sometimes a team has sincerely delved into the differences as much as possible and is running out of time to make a decision. In those cases, the company must find a way to pick a direction and move forward as one.

Survival in the wild means blending in, camouflaging one’s appearance to avoid being seen by prey. It’s just the opposite in marketing. Prioritize market differentiation. Be noticed or die. And with all the flashy ways to get noticed evolving daily, it’s a tough world to compete in.