Laser focus or hedge your bets?
In today’s sound bite/140 character culture, we’re used to seeing the same old business maxims. One of the most popular is that in order to succeed you have to have laser focus. As with all things in business, the answer is more complex than that.
When you are setting up an innovative startup, the key thing you are testing is whether you are able to solve a problem in a new or better way (or for the first time). I agree that you have to be crystal-clear about what that problem is, or you are going to struggle to create an effective product, or communicate what you are doing to customers.
What might not be so clear is the execution strategy, the product features, what the best target sector is, the best route to market, the pricing strategy and so on.
Even if you are taking an established idea you are probably trying a fresh approach. This raises all these questions, even if you know the need is there.
The reason that startups are generally exciting places to work is that there is constant testing going on – confining yourself to one strategy, target market, or pricing model may doom a great idea to failure. There’s just a balance between testing what will work best and spreading yourself too thin.
Testing in my view is taking multiple bets to increase your chances of success and managing risk.
Some of the classic errors people fall into is spending far too much time developing the product, when really the minimum viable product (MVP) is all that is required to test the concept. Additional features not only slow you down, they cost time and money. They can also make the product harder for the end user to understand.
For larger, more established, companies or if you want to scale rapidly focus is essential.
If you have a clear strategy and have resolved issues like pricing and route to market, then you can hire great people, tell them your focus and allow then to use their creativity and initiative to achieve it. Without that clear statement of goals, people find it impossible to just get on with adding value.
Your focus will mean you have a clear proposition to customers, investors and staff
Even if you have 100 things you want to improve, try to focus on the top 1-3 of them and make sure they are done right. Trying to do ten things at once spreads your attention too thinly.
I believe focus is hugely important, you just need to make sure you are applying to the right elements of your business, and for the right reasons.