Comments on: Lack of Focus

By: Jeff Pierick

Jeff Pierick — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:10:31 +0000

Ah, yes … Martingale Software. What a fun team. That was my first consulting gig. I developed Lotus 123 charts for a firm in downtown Boston. The charts were actually printed on an ink-pen plotter. Boy do I feel old now! But I know that time got me prepared for the “real world”. I’ve been consulting ever since (more or less). Thanks for the start Brad.

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:32:10 +0000

I’ve actually found this to be one of the funner and more interesting long term strategy issues with companies that I’ve funded. Some entrepreurs aren’t focused enough; some are too focused. So – it’s an ongoing conversation, especially as new opportunities that aren’t exactly in the sweet spot of the existing business occur.

I’ve rarely found a good entrepreneur that’s non-responsive to this topic (either direction). These are open and active conversations that are often vigorous. If the entrepreneur doesn’t want to talk about this, it’s an early indicator of a real problem.

By: Jason Wood

Jason Wood — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:20:00 +0000

Brad,

Now that you’re on the other side of things, how do you help pass along this lesson to your portfolio entrepreneurs?

How often do you see them crossing that “fine line” and, even more importantly, how ready are they to accept a nudge back the other direction?

By: Dave Jilk

Dave Jilk — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:35:32 +0000

You forgot to mention that when we got the Compaq, we also took on another partner (Jeff Pierick) because none of us knew anything about PCs at the time. You liked this idea because your dad had kept telling you not to have partners, so apparently the more the better.

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:17:31 +0000

While what we were doing could be called “bootstrapping”, it was completely unfocused. In my first successful company (Feld Technologies), we bootstrapped the entire thing from day one (we had $10 of paid in capital.) However, we had a goal and purpose that was consistent with the bootstrapping / consulting work that we did.

In the case of Martingale, we were just “doing stuff.” It was totally random, had no long term vision or cohesiveness, no “focus”, and ultimately wasn’t really “bootstrapping” since we never really had any straps to pull our boots up with (it’s not clear we ever had any boots either.)

By: bwhichard

bwhichard — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:03:01 +0000

Seems like you guys were doing some early bootstrapping? Is that really so bad. Was there really a market for Mac graphics? I love the idea of pursing things that interest you but was there a market for the Mac stuff? Would you have been more satisfied if you had tried the Mac stuff and seen that to it’s conclusion? Focus with no customers is really just a hobby not a business. Nothing wrong with a hobby though.

By: jvaleski

jvaleski — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:10:00 +0000

Always a fine line. Too much focus and you’ll starve, too little and you’ll starve. Guy Kawasaki, in The Art of the Start, highly recommends contracting random jobs to bootstrap the machine until your focus can drive things on its own. Makes great sense to me, though may be a hard pill to swallow. There’s the obvious risk of the contracting doing nothing but leading you further and further away from your focus though.