How to Use the Corridor Method
This model is the first part of a small series about creating and building a project or idea. You can view the other parts of this series here:
As a person that falls victim to over thinking, this is what had held me back before starting my first businesses. I wanted to make sure everything would be perfect before I sacrificed any hours into the work. So, one day in April as I was sitting in a lecture theatre at Uni, I made a call to just simply deliver something, start to finish. This is when I got to work designing what became my first ever product, The KADi Port: A USB-C Adapter for for my first ever business. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was executing under the Corridor Method, something I’ve stuck by ever since.
The starting vision was far from the final product
The vision I started with was FAR from the solution that made it the market. The tweaks, changes and improvements made along the way, resulted in a product that the market wanted to buy, and was paying money for. It was great. This is how my first major business venture (the first profitable one to last over 12 months) got off the ground, and lasted over three and a half years.
Execution is all that counts, it’s simply about getting started
It’s the same line that every business ‘guru’ trots out, but it’s absolutely true. The learnings here were huge, it was that everything matters in execution, and ideas are nothing. I discovered that once you start executing, you figure it out along the way through trial and error. I only recently found out the there’s a principle for this, it's called the Corridor Method by Robert Ronstadt, he writes:
“The Corridor Principle states that the mere act of starting a venture enables entrepreneurs to see other venture opportunities they could neither see nor take advantage of until they had started their initial venture.” - Robert Ronstadt
My own interpretation is that a plan reveals one potential outcome, the one you can see at the end of the corridor, leaving you blind to all the other opportunities that sit behind the doors along the corridor. Action, or movement down the corridor, reveals potentially even larger and more impactful opportunities (visualised as gems) as you pass them by.
Key take outs from action over planning:
Have a vision, but get started. Opportunities that you’ve never considered will present themselves, and will likely be better than your original idea.
Over strategising may feel like action, but it leads to nothing. You need to get into market and respond to it as you recieve feedback.
A disclaimer: Less time planning does not mean there is no plan
With a page dedicated to strategy and mental models, I feel the need to clarify that I am not advocating to not think before acting. What I am advocating is that action should be part of your plan, build a hypothesis and test it in market as soon as possible, but DON’T build a perfect business plan. They just don’t exist.