A big challenge for founders is persuading people that something should exist before there is enough evidence to feel entirely certain of it themselves. While you need conviction to do this, you also need to be willing to learn things that may change your mind, even if it seems it will derail your plans. 

This is where curiosity can be a business advantage. Staying curious means you have a chance to learn from something others might dismiss because it does not fit what they expected.

The reality is that unexpected things happen all the time in a startup. Users often have surprising responses and unexpected behaviors; stumbling points or new uses for your product arise; a team member views a problem completely differently; or a product creates an unintended outcome. 

Being curious and open-minded, not defensive, can make these moments meaningful information signals instead of an inconvenience or a roadblock to meeting deadlines or a product timeline.

Companies lose their curiosity at the point when defending their original decision becomes more important than finding out whether it’s actually working. I have witnessed fairly often with fellow entrepreneurs that once they commit to a plan, they can become reluctant to take feedback seriously if it suggests they need to change course. This is understandable; certainty makes a company feel more stable. But the cost is that it can turn really important signals (which are not so glamorous to hear in the moment) into something the team explains away before it has had a chance to change anything.

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