When is change the right step forward?

Published:
July 20, 2020
By:
Tiger
Safarov

Since we started Zen in 2016 I knew that the only way to grow and build the right solution is to say “Yes” to everything. The ability to say YES, perhaps at the expense of thinking through, is a strength and I try to lead my incredible team with this in mind.

We said yes to:

  • Can I add any distributor to Zen?
  • Can I add a dental inventory system to Zen?
  • Can I add an Amazon account to Zen?
  • Can I add my budgets to Zen?
  • Can I do a price comparison on Zen?
  • Can I order Costco water through Zen?
  • Can I add all of my team members to Zen?
  • We said yes to DSOs, Private Practices, Manufactures, and anything that could help our members have a better purchasing experience.

All of these questions and our default YES answer helped to shape what we built, launched, and plan for future developments.

We also said YES to a lot of internal projects, especially in the last 2-3 months. From launching daily, and then weekly, live webinars, podcasts, and weekly blogs. We were quick to change the dashboard so we can stream live events to our members’ ZenDashboard. With all of these changes, we did just enough planning to get the taste and not get caught in “analysis by paralysis”.

Did we lose focus at times? YES. Did we pay the price? YES. But if we are set out to build a truly unique company with a culture of doing vs planning, then why worry about small missteps.

Certain projects we had to scale back and some we continue doing for a simple reason of “building a muscle”.

So where does it all lead us to?

Zen has grown and gained a great customer base. We’ve built so much to try different technical avenues, that the right step forward is to start pulling back from some of the “Yeses” and narrowing down our focus on what is really important. There is also something that is an absolute must for me personally: are we building something difficult and that will help to change the industry? Copying something that has been done before just simply doesn’t excite me. Perhaps Zen is in the stage of humble reassessment of “what did we learn” and “what is our focus”. Perhaps today is more important than ever to think through all that we learned and focus on one direction?

So, is change the right step forward?  

Tiger Safarov

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