Friday, August 15, 2008

Innovation Notation

Entrepreneurial pruning promotes proper startup growth

In the world of high-tech entrepreneurship, it can be maddeningly easy to get distracted by too many ideas and opportunities. From initial conception, to public rollout and sales, lack of focus represents one of the greatest challenges facing creative high-tech businesspeople.

Focus is something that many of us struggle with. I know that my own brain is filled with ideas for new companies and products. In fact, I have an entire folder full of ideas just waiting to be implemented. Over the course of my career in entrepreneurship, it became clear to me that I would be a “serial” entrepreneur, creating more than one successful company. In reality, though, I am more of a “parallel” entrepreneur, in that I typically have more than one company going at a time.

This is good and bad. The more ideas I have in motion, the more likely it is that one of them actually might be a good one. Unfortunately, juggling too many balls often leads to all of them being neglected and not getting the full attention they deserve. This can result in good ideas failing unnecessarily.

Too many companies in progress at the same time has been a dilemma I have been faced with at several points in my career, though perhaps never so much as it is today — even though I know better. Sometimes the smartest decision can be to abandon seemingly good ideas — at least for a time — in order to dedicate limited resources to a smaller number (preferably one or two) of serious efforts.

Think of it as entrepreneurial pruning. Just as you must keep your bushes from growing haphazardly to ensure attractive and productive growth, so too must you do the same with your entrepreneurial efforts.

The same sort of trimming must be applied in other areas of the business as well. When creating or revising a product, too many ideas can lead to “feature creep” that prevents or delays a successful launch. It is vital to understand the customers’ needs and your team’s abilities. Especially in the web arena, it often is better to get to market quickly with several useful new features every few months, rather than one “perfect” feature set every couple of years (as was standard in the past).

One can simply look at Apple Inc.’s efforts with products like the iPhone and Apple TV to understand that even the big boys with tremendous resources have decided to focus like a laser beam on delivering a limited number of features quickly, while being prepared to release more down the road.

Even if you have managed to focus carefully on your product creation, your business development efforts can often become unfocused, especially for a startup company. By their very nature, companies in the early stages of growth typically have very few resources available for sales, marketing and partnerships. Often, an entrepreneur will look at a product and recognize that it would be a great tool for several different industries.

Certainly, the company should do nothing to discourage customers in all industries from taking advantage of the offering, but efforts to develop a solid customer base must generally be focused on specific verticals or demographics to be initially successful.

To maintain focus, you must clearly understand your goals and the path you intend to take. Flexibility remains a hallmark of startup entrepreneurship, but one must be careful not to become distracted — especially since it is so easy to do.

Entrepreneurs face temptation every day. The inclination to start new businesses and launch new products can be overwhelming, especially in the wake of initial success. The drive to create the perfect product, just as it was seen in your mind on day one, can be compelling. And the sweet smell of sales success can be intoxicating, leading to an urge to sell to everyone, everywhere.

The antidote is carefully planned pruning, cutting back where necessary to allow precious resources to foster strong growth in what remains.
 

Chip Griffin is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who serves as the CEO of CustomScoop, a media intelligence company based in Concord, N.H. He can be reached at chipgriffin@gmail.com.