As we enter 2020 and a new decade, I wanted to touch upon an essential ingredient for startup entrepreneurs and product managers – Focus.
In India, we all know about the great archer Arjuna. When asked by his guru Drona on what he sees during an archery session, he replies that he just sees the left eye of the bird – precisely his target. Arjuna had a laser focus on his target. He was one of the greatest archers.
As a startup entrepreneur or a product manager – it’s very important to really have a clear focus on one product goal or idea, rather than spreading thin. I have seen many people struggle when they pursue parallel initiatives and pivot too much. While it’s fine to deviate a bit on the means to the end, without a focus on the goal and giving it the necessary time to accomplish, it’s going to be hard to succeed.
David Frey, a marketing thought leader lays out the below for FOCUS, which is a great one
F – follow
O – one
C – course
U – until
S – successful
Once you have identified the market potential for an idea, its important you focus your attention on achieving this precisely and not distribute your energy.
While you can get a lot of tips to keep the focus at a micro level, here are some thoughts related to building products or for a product company relating to focus.
Focus brings out the purpose of the company or the direction that they have to embark on. Often in building products – priority is the most critical decision point – where to prioritize. Focus drives priorities.
I did research on the word focus with some of the top companies and here are the results
- Microsoft is focused squarely on turning every company into a tech company: Satya Nadella
- I’m excited about Alphabet’s long term focus on tackling big challenges through technology: Sunder Pichai
- Quality rooms at a low price: OYO Founder
- We have been payments champion and will continue to focus on payments: paytm founder
- A privacy-focused vision for social networking: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder
- Focus more on solving a specific problem that’s close to you. Paul Graham used to tell us, “Make something 100 people love, not something a million people kind of like.” So we did not go into this to start a business. We did not go into this to figure out travel distribution or this or that. We only tried to get into this to try and make something really great that we would want ourselves and for our friends. – Brian Chesky, Airbnb founder
So the message is simple :
Focus on one idea or use case, have the team align to the focus, give it the best shot & time and make the market love it
Wishing you a great new year and decade ahead!