Burn the Bridges

First of all keep in mind I don’t support or see as a positive thing the massacres that happened in Central and South America when Spain, Portugal and other European nations started colonizing the continent. Quite the opposite. That being said we can still learn from their strategic and military choices, and that is what this post is about.

Hernán Cortés was the Spanish general who was responsible for the fall of the Aztec Empire and sub-sequent colonization of the Americas by Spain. His military technology was far superior, but the Aztec outnumbered his men, and they were fighting for their lives (i.e., as motivated as you can get…).

In other words, he needed something to motivate his men to fight eagerly as well, else there was a chance they would be defeated.

That is why when he arrived at the shores he gave orders to burn and sink all the ships that brought his men. He wanted to make it clear that retreating was not an option. If the Aztecs were fighting for their lives, well, so were the Spanish men now. And as you might remember from history classes, it worked.

Bottom line: sometimes you need to burn the ships and the bridges behind you to make sure you’ll give all you’ve got.

Here are some examples of how this might apply to startups and websites, even if at a smaller scale:

• Renew your domain for 10 years, so you tell yourself that this is for the long run.
• Invest $1000 on a design for your website, so you tell yourself that if you stop working on it you’ll lose that money.
• Once your online business starts making some decent money consider quitting your day job, so you tell yourself that now your websites need to pay your bills.

What about you, are you willing to burn the bridges?