25. In startups, distractions are everywhere. Entrepreneurs must find the fine balance of intense focus without rigidity.

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Intro

Founders can be like hound dogs on a trail. They are tracking a scent, absolutely focused on their objective. Then suddenly: Squirrel! The CEO races off after some new enticing goal, possibly causing catastrophic damage to the core business. For all companies, but especially for startups, focus is critical.

A founder I advise recently asked if they needed to be looking for an opportunity to pivot. They had seen the "Feel the Boot" on pivots and thought I was saying that they should be trying to pivot. My actual point was that while pivots end up being necessary for most companies, and should not be avoided, they are not something to seek out on their own. Changing direction without purpose is just a random walk. Pivots are a response to an underperforming business plan.

The founder suggested that I should create a balancing episode about the importance of focus. So, here it is.

Sources of Distraction

There are countless sources of distraction for an entrepreneur. News and social media are overflowing with new shiny objects: some new tech stack, development tool, development methodology, cloud service, API, marketing channel, etc. New technologies are particularly distracting to engineer founders.

New markets can be another big distraction. Suddenly you realize that a whole different class of people needs something similar to what you are already building, and surely it would not be too hard to accommodate them as well. Right?

Existing customers can also drive distraction. They will ask for new features or capabilities specific to their circumstances. It can be tempting to drop everything to give them what they want. While these might be great ideas, always consider them within the broader product roadmap and customer base.

One company I am helping makes a wonderfully simple and effective medical device. One potential customer wants to have motion tracking and networking added to it so they can collect data on the users. The founder wants to add that capability. I am less enthusiastic. While this might be a productive new direction, my concern is that it will delay the product by at least several months. At the same time, it is not clear that adding this feature would increase sales and margins overall, or that the customer would refuse to buy without it.

On the other hand, distractions can also come from advisors, so be careful when listening to them (me). We have lots of ideas that can help your business but might not be something you can address right now.

All of these distractions are incredibly attractive because the grass always looks greener in the fields you have not explored yet. You know the challenges with what you are trying to do now, but those new things look easy.

Benefits of Focus

Entrepreneurs need to focus because they have way too many ideas. Scanty time and cash resources require a tight focus on only those efforts and deliverables central to the business. Creating the perfect minimum viable product addressing the needs of a narrowly defined customer set can be all you need to start the business growing.

That single targeted and polished offering can generate far higher returns than creating additional parallel capabilities within your solution.

Focus also helps clarify your vision to several different audiences. Your teams, from development to marketing, will all understand exactly what the company does and what you are trying to accomplish. Your potential investors will see what you are selling, who you are selling to, and appreciate the business model. Your prospective customers will gain a clear idea of how your offerings fit into their business and address their pain points.

Pain of Digression

Lack of focus leads to being spread too thin. Each of the multiple activities you pursue receives fewer resources than required. Even with perfect focus, in most startups the core of the business gets less attention than it needs, so with parallel efforts, the shortfall multiplies.

We lose a tremendous amount of time and energy every time we switch tasks or change priorities. For that reason alone, we should never change direction frivolously. I have seen many projects in easily distracted organizations that never get finished because the constant reshuffling of tasks repeatedly pushes the completion date over the horizon.

I think this killed one of the companies I helped last year. They wanted to create a comprehensive experience for their users, and so tried to provide a whole range of features that people said they wanted to see. However, this diffusion of effort left the core invitation and new user onboarding capabilities underdeveloped and untested. Those processes were awkward and complex. As a result, users never really engaged in the platform at all, making it impossible to raise additional capital and dooming the business.

The Balancing Act

Founders need to find a balance between focus and flexibility. It is a Zen thing, like when my Tai-Chi instructor said that my elbow had to be "bent, but not bent and straight but not straight." You need to be laser-focused on your most important objectives right up until the moment you take the considered decision to change them. Never allow yourself to follow a random walk from shiny object to shiny object, but also keep an eye out for the opportunity and necessity to pivot to a new direction when the current one is failing, or you have real evidence that the new course is better.

So, my Zen wisdom is “be as focused and disciplined as possible, but not more so.”

It is hardly a new thought that choosing what not to do is often more important than choosing what to do. The large number of opportunities combined with constrained time and resources means that you will be saying no to things far more often than yes. For those times you do need to change direction, make sure it is thoughtful and intentional, not reactive and Squirrel!