Why Risk Identification is the first, and most important part of Flight Safety

Risk identification in aviation is about systematically spotting anything that could cause harm before it leads to an incident, rather than waiting for something to go wrong. Early‑stage founders can borrow this discipline to find threats to their business model, operations, and people early, when they are possible and still easy to fix. 

What “risk identification” means

In aviation, risk identification starts with defining the system (aircraft, route, processes, people), then listing hazards—conditions or events that could lead to unsafe outcomes. 

This is done both reactively (after incidents or near misses) and proactively (through audits, monitoring, and structured assessments). 

For a startup, the “system” is your product, market, tech, processes, and people, and the goal is to list anything that could materially derail your objectives (survival, growth, runway). 

How aviation does it (in brief)

Aviation uses structured methods such as safety surveys, operational audits, and monitoring of normal operations data to spot hazards and trends - threats. 

These hazards then go into a central hazard or risk register, which becomes the single source of truth for later assessment and mitigation. 

The discipline is: define scope, actively look for hazards, write them down, and revisit them continuously. 

Translating this for early‑stage founders

You can mirror aviation’s approach in a lean, startup‑friendly way:

• Define your “flight”: Clarify the next 6–12 months’ key objectives (e.g., reach product–market fit, close a seed round, achieve a specific revenue or user milestone). 

  
  

• Run structured risk sessions: Use simple methods like brainstorming, SWOT, and scenario analysis to list anything that could stop you hitting those objectives (funding, team, tech, regulatory, market timing, key dependencies). 

Create a living risk register: Maintain a lightweight list with each risk, its source, and a short description; this mirrors aviation’s central hazard register. 

The power comes from making risks explicit and shared, rather than leaving them as vague worries in people’s heads. 

Practical techniques you can borrow

Here are some actual aviation techniques that adapt well to startups:

• Proactive checks (like safety surveys

  Monthly “risk review” meetings where founders and key team members ask, “What’s changed that could hurt us?”

• Checklists

  Use a simple checklist covering strategic, operational, financial, legal, and people risks, similar to aviation checklists and surveys. 

• Incident and near‑miss reviews

  When something almost goes badly (lost a key hire, nearly missed payroll, major outage narrowly avoided), do a short assessment: what underlying risk did this expose, and how do we capture it, how do we reduce the likelihood of it happening again?  This matches aviation’s reactive hazard identification from occurrence reports and investigations. 

  
  

• Normal‑operations monitoring

  Track a few simple leading indicators (e.g., churn, deployment failures, sales cycle length) to spot emerging issues before they become crises, similar to operational monitoring (fuel emergency, in-flight diversions, failed approaches) in aviation. When a metric trends the wrong way, add the underlying issue as a new risk in your register. 

Why this is so important to embed now

Early identification allows proactive decisions—pivoting focus, shoring up cash, or changing architecture—rather than scrambling when a crisis hits. 

It also improves investor and team confidence, because you can clearly explain what might go wrong and how you are watching it, which mirrors how aviation uses Safet Management Systems to demonstrate systematic safety management.