Focus

It is the secret to entrepreneurial success.

Focus enables the entrepreneur to align available resources on achieving initial success for their product or service.

During my current professional sabbatical I’ve been reviewing business plans through the CONNECT Springboard program, as well as catching up with a bunch of entrepreneur friends.  A constant theme that prevails with struggling businesses is that they fail to focus their energies on one key aspect of their vision that might enable them to achieve initial traction.

Recently I met with three entrepreneurs, all working with ideas that potentially could result in great businesses.

The first entrepreneur spent 30 minutes describing their vision, and then another 30 minutes describing how it could be cloned into other market segments.   I tried repeatedly to get him to stop talking and simply describe to me the one killer “thing” that they were going to launch to kick off the business.  The response was repeatedly a mix of features that surely “together” would get them traction.  I tried as tactfully as possible to help him understand that in this market you must quickly demonstrate your business model’s success if you are to get traction with angel / venture capital.  Sadly, my projection for this team is that they will “hit the wall” with their friends and family money long before gaining market traction and becoming attractive to smart funding sources.  Simple focus on the one killer service for their market would likely produce a much higher probability of success.

The second entrepreneur I contacted after noting some exciting progress with his online business.  I was surprised to hear him tell me to ignore the website, as here is the big vision…..and 30 minutes later I was more confused that when we started.  He finished describing his business by talking about how badly he needed to raise money to make it all happen.  If he simply focused on turning his initial website into a profitable business, he just might earn the opportunity to expand to a larger vision.

The third entrepreneur, experienced as he was, exploded his pitch when he included “we are going to do it all” for small business.  Ouch.   I countered with a focused aspect of their vision that might achieve success quickly.

Lack of focus becomes evident immediately if the entrepreneur cannot describe his business in one or two sentences.  To me, it’s the startup acid test.  If the entrepreneur cannot quickly recite a concise elevator pitch, then they have not committed to a core focus, need to do more business research, and certainly are not ready for investor presentations.

Questions to ask:

1. What is the single most valuable component of your vision for your prospective clients?
2. If you could do only one thing what would it be?
3. What could you deliver to market with the resources you now have?

With focus, startup success is possible.

Confession – I’ve been guilty of a lack of focus.  One incident cost my startup team and investors a ton of money. It is a preventable mistake.

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