If by killer instinct you mean the value of focus then I agree. But I find most startups succeed more on their ability to negotiate win-win outcomes with partners, customers, suppliers and less on "winner take all" models.
Most markets look more like stag hunts where teams of cooperating players outperform "go it alone" firms. If a startup team sets high standards of excellence for performance that's great. But you face so many competitors, including the 'status quo' that a focus on "winning" leads to you to overlook opportunities especially in the early market. Take a look at Saras Sarasvathy's "What makes entrepreneurial" at http://www.effectuation.org/ftp/effectua.pdf in particular two excerpts:
"Expert entrepreneurs [...] are actually in the business of creating the future, which entails having to work together with a wide variety of people over long periods of time. [They fill their future] with enduring human relationships that outlive failures and create successes over time"
"This is largely ignored in our entrepreneurship curricula which tend to focus on market research, business planning, new venture financing and legal issues. As far as I know no entrepreneurship programs offer courses in creating and managing lasting relationships or stable stakeholder networks, nor on failure management."
Hey thanks for that, you just clued me on on a strategy I could definitely use to push my product out. Your comment is really helpful. This is especially the case for bootstrapped startups where you really really need to leverage any and all resources you have. It's to say "we'll just buy our customer's attention" if your funded, but working with no money entails you pool resources, bend over backwards for those key connections, and find novel ways to get what you want, which as you point out, frequently comes down to collaboration and sharing your pie.
Awesome. I think there's a "minimum" level of talent you need, and then at the margin it's about the killer instinct. Really it's about who wants it more since ideas are pretty much a commodity.
Most markets look more like stag hunts where teams of cooperating players outperform "go it alone" firms. If a startup team sets high standards of excellence for performance that's great. But you face so many competitors, including the 'status quo' that a focus on "winning" leads to you to overlook opportunities especially in the early market. Take a look at Saras Sarasvathy's "What makes entrepreneurial" at http://www.effectuation.org/ftp/effectua.pdf in particular two excerpts:
"Expert entrepreneurs [...] are actually in the business of creating the future, which entails having to work together with a wide variety of people over long periods of time. [They fill their future] with enduring human relationships that outlive failures and create successes over time"
"This is largely ignored in our entrepreneurship curricula which tend to focus on market research, business planning, new venture financing and legal issues. As far as I know no entrepreneurship programs offer courses in creating and managing lasting relationships or stable stakeholder networks, nor on failure management."