Venture Kid

The Laser and the Spinning Top

Kevin McGovern once said, focus is the laser to success. I believe that today and I have internalized that through hard work and many mistakes in the last few years. I realize now that in order for a start-up business to be successful a team must be relentlessly focused on doing one thing very well at any given time. Distractions must be labeled and turned down. I cannot say the same is true for larger corporate firms (after all, there is much more talent and capital available in that circumstance).

The Scrimple team was always most effective when labor and resources were focused on tackling one big task at a time. For instance, this past summer when we shifted our business from doing printable coupons online to a local discount card model. We did this in a matter of about one month. We signed over all our clients, built and launched a new website, placed orders with suppliers, and signed a contract with a local distribution partner for $2,000 immediately turning a profit.

In the past, my mistakes as the company’s leader lie in the fact that I acted less like a laser and more like a spinning top. To be a “spinning top” means to work sporadically and to re-appropriate one’s energy too often toward different projects or tasks that are not interdependent. Thus, less is accomplished than otherwise would be. For example, at the start of last summer we had a particular vision for our company and a specific path that we were headed down in order to realize it. It involved making our coupon website more scalable and viral. However we began to drift a little as we investigated other ideas, such as our coupons on a credit card concept and also with two supplementary website develop jobs for local businesses. We also spent time trying to raise capital, which was not necessary either.

Looking back on it now, those two side jobs actually provided unnecessary income for the company compared to where that effort could have been allocated. Also, we should not have been looking too intensely into the credit card idea and instead realized that we did not have the bandwidth at that moment to fully implement it. Rather we should have been focused on scaling the website by building on top of what we already had.

Success requires many mistakes, however repeating the same mistake must be avoided. Now that I have made this mistake I will strive to never again repeat it. Learn from my mistake; understand the difference been the laser and the spinning top.

Tags: entrepreneurship, focus, spinning top

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Two Farmers Speculating on Opportunity

It is unfortunate that my experiences as an entrepreneur thus far have served to make me more cynical. The upside is that my vision has become clearer and more “realistic.” Many of the most successful business individuals I know are characterized as realists rather than idealists. However idealism has some value as a positive, motivating force. There is an metaphor that accurately explains this dichotomy:

Two farmers meet in a field right as the planting season is upon them. One of them is an Idealist, the other a Realist. The Idealist remarks to the Realist, “This field is ripe. We can grow our crops in this field. We can sell them at the marketplace. We can use the money to hire farmhands and buy more land. Soon we will be like managers. Soon after that we will be the managers of managers and eventually our farm will be so large and well managed that we can retire and the business can run itself.”

The Realist is thinks for a moment and looks around at the barren brown soil. He turns to the Idealist and responds, “Yes, there is opportunity here. But in order to get to the point you describe we must first acquire the seeds and plant the crops with our own hands. We must nourish the crops as the grow and keep the insects away until they are ripe. When the time is ripe we must develop a method of transportation to get the crops to the marketplace so that we may sell them. We will have no reputation to begin with so we will have to learn ropes, we will have to find the buyers. When the season is over we must figure out our expenses to last through the Winter when inventory may be low or non-existent. In a few years perhaps we can hire some fieldhands, but they must be trained. We will have to train them. In a few more years perhaps we can earn enough to buy a new plot of land, but that may prove more difficult than expected. Yes, the opportunity that you speak of is quite out of reach from where we stand today. However, if we commit ourselves to the chores and the mundane work required of us and if we are willing learn, we can get to that place that you speak of. It may take a decade or two, but it may be possible.”

Tags: entrepreneurship, idealism, realism

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