Oddbean

Be an inch wide and a mile deep Focus drives excellence; or as the saying goes: be an inch wide and a mile deep. Nowhere does this apply more in building a business and launching a startup: Sure, we all like to be broadly informed (aka: a mile wide and an inch deep) and social media and traditional print/broadcast media are very focused on this. TikTok is probably the best example of this. Yet this mindset is an anathema to building excellence in businesses or products. First you must define the foundations and build those, test those, and validate those. In a business-sense, this is the start-up phase: you've got an idea and a small amount of funding which you use to validate that there is a market demand for your service/idea. You have limited resources and so you typically have to quickly discard some paths that aren't working (gaining traction), and pivot to others that are. You do not have the luxury of launching a myriad of related ideas/products/services. Having validated that the market sees your idea is commercially viable, you can more easily raise additional funds (if needed), and focus in on building momentum to accelerate growth. Bloody well done. And now you've reached a crucial fork in the road. Specialise (and focus), or use your starting point to land-and-expand? I'm a firm believer you must focus rather than diversify. Build the absolute living fuck out of that idea, become the best in the world at delivering that product, service or experience. Evaluate and iterate. Repeat. Build a great team around you that fill in your gaps. Build the culture of learning and building and growing together. But does that mean you never branch out? Well, no it doesn't. I would suggest that the objective time point at which you start to consider that is when your first foundational product/service is significantly cash-flow/sat-flow positive. At this point, your first product/service is providing the funding to expand out and you are investing in yourself again. This is an incredibly powerful position because it removes your reliance on external funders who always have a (very reasonable) need for a return, which inevitably places pressures on direction and timelines. So if you've got an idea for a product or service, like Satoshi, quietly explore, research and test your idea with friends and colleagues who can critique gaps and suggest fresh ideas and perspectives. Identify what the thing is that you need to focus on .. then be relentless in retaining that focus and build the people around you that bring that to life and excellence. Be an inch wide, and a mile deep.