Rich Atkinson

These are my notes from the Focus or Fail Workshop @ Pollenizer tonight.

What is Focus?

A common cause of startup failure is trying to do too many things

You can’t beat the big companies by being broad

The more focused and narrow you are, the easier it is to ‘get bought’

As entrepreneurs we underestimate the cost of doing more things
Do one thing, and do it right!

Don’t worry about missing customers, customers move very slowly.

What is Purpose?

It’s not about the technology, it’s about creating and capturing value.

Know your focus, and be clear on why.

Regularly review the purpose of what you are doing.

Ask yourself and write down:
1. Your Wildest Dream
2. Why are you building your business?
3. What is the one thing that happens that means it’s all working?

The Approach

Do things in sequence. You can’t have your vision all at once. Do the most important thing, the core of the product first. And do it really well.

Imagine they are like bowling pins. Hit the first pin really hard.

As a rule of thumb, a new product must be 10x better than the incumbent. So go after the one customer (segment) that is beating down your door for the product.

Test your hypothesis as quickly as possible.

Don’t worry about getting it right first time, because you will definitely be wrong.

Target a segment to own it. You can’t own them all (at least not as a startup)

Plan which segments you will focus on:

Focus (one) | Do (few) | Don’t (many)
——————————————

If you have 20% of the customers in a particular segment, then you basically own that segment. That is much, much better than having customers in different segments all over the place.

Features

( (core utility ) support features ) crap

Customer Development

Customer Discovery → Customer Validation → Customer Creation → Company Creation
How to allocate cost to product versions:
v1 20% / v2 20% / v3 10% / v4 50%

Website lead capture. Turn your leads into happy users.

Context of leads → Qucikest Path → Happy Users → Sharing Content?
(SEM/SEO/Referral/…)

Pick one contet of referral at a time, and work it! Get it right.

Use the one context to target your focus segment.

You just need to prove unit sales at a profit, to prove your business.

One track mind (or don’t have all your small balls up in the air!)

1. Sacrifice (Sacrifice everything that isn’t your core focus)
2. Sequence (Sequence to vision – steps from Core to Vision)
3. Core First!!!!

Measure what is important!

Patience and perseverance. Overnight success takes many years of hard work.

Pick Segments where you offer 10x the value. Do this by itemising characteristics, and scoring the segment.

Characteristic | Segment 1 | Segment 2 | Segment 3
—————————————————————————
Reachable
Strong Immediate need…
…
(30 characteristics altogether)

NB1: Slides are here: http://www.slideshare.net/liubinskas/focus-or-fail-workshop-by-mick-liubinskas

NB2: There is a Sydney Lean Startup circle