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The Challenge of Staying Focused in a Startup

Startups have a hard time staying focused. It’s the nature of the beast. The enthusiasm founders have for their startups can very quickly lead to chasing too many opportunities.

darts and moneyThe big risk? Running in every direction, chasing every lead, idea and opportunity only to realize at the end that you’ve made very little progress. And this might not sound too serious until you also realize you’ve run out of money, can’t raise more capital, certainly haven’t generated enough revenues and…ugh.

Startups are great at finding opportunities. The enthusiasm, creativity and freshness of startup founders often gives them the ability to find new solutions – they’re not locked in a box. And don’t forget their risk profile. Startup founders, by their very nature, have to be risk takers. That’s a good thing when looking for new opportunities.

So you can’t take away the things that make startups and startup founders successful – risk-taking, enthusiasm, creativity, etc. – but at the same time, those traits often lead startups to chase too much at once.

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Keeping a 20,000 Foot View One Day at a Time

How do you maintain a 20,000 foot strategic view of your startup and business, while frantically managing the day-to-day efforts?

hang gliding

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because it’s something I’m dealing with now. Immediately after launching Standout Jobs, things accelerated incredibly. And that should be the goal of every startup. Prior to launching you’re focused primarily on product development, but after launch there are a million other issues to deal with. Acceleration is good. It’s certainly better than the alternative! But how do you manage that – most of which involves day-to-day issues (like acquiring customers, customer support, managing the team, handling bugs, etc.) – while still keeping an overall eye on your strategic vision and goal?

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Is a Lack of Experience Really Such a Bad Thing?

old manYoung entrepreneurs don’t have a lot of experience. That’s a given. And in many cases this is rarely brought up as an issue. But in certain industries (especially in “older industries” or B2B-related industries) that lack of experience will be a sticking point. At least for many people inside the industry.

It’s certainly been a point of discussion around Standout Jobs. We’ve received a fair amount of good press, but one of the sticking points we see consistently is our lack of experience in recruiting. None of the founders are recruiters. We haven’t lived the last 15 years of our lives in HR.

Experience is valuable. There’s no question about it. But it’s not a guarantee of success. If that was the case, very few startups would ever succeed. And there are ways of getting around a lack of experience.

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About Ben Yoskovitz
I recently joined GoInstant as VP Product. GoInstant changes how we use the web, making it shareable like never before.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). I'm a hands-on startup guy, helping companies grow successfully from the idea forward. You can reach me at byosko at gmail dot com.

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