I was an entrepreneur for more than ten years, building my network with other entrepreneurs, CEOs and company owners. After some time, interacting with my peers in the digital area I have started to ask myself why entrepreneurs in digital areas always spend their energy creating new products and services?
I’ve met many competitors, and I can’t remember one without a story of “fail” with a new product that they had been launched and never really invest in growing it or show to the market real advantages on that.
Why they waste energy.
Why does it happen so often on this web area? Resources are there, a “free” team perception to create a marketplace is there, an e-commerce platform is there, an HR site… However, why these new ideas do not grow? Entrepreneurs already have the formula, their companies are going well, they do an excellent job, and already have a considerable number of different services. So, why do these new ventures fail?
When institutions create surveys trying to answer this question they can find answers related to high taxes, low workforce, management problems, low sales, etc. However, in the end, it is possible to figure out that the main problem is that the entrepreneurs lose the focus, and sometimes it can cost them their primary business. Because of the primary activity, lack of a plan and, the main reason, less prioritization and time to the new venture, it falls in the first steps.
Focus
We always hear about the importance of having a focus or purpose, but when we have all the resources on our hands, is very easy to see opportunities and think: why not? Why do we not create this new product? The majority of innovative entrepreneurs in that area take a long time until finding a way to say no to these new projects. The problem starts when we don’t plan, and we don’t understand how much energy we must spend to make this business really happen, to accomplish the expected and possible results. My experience with that was a complete failure and a partial success considering that two of my ventures stay in the market with some clients and the potential to grow. However, at the time of the set up of the new business, the idea had more importance than my love or inspiration for going through all challenges with the same passion that I had for my primary business.
We could find many reasons to make a different choice, but in and is completely challenging to break our impulse to create new products and do not pivot* our take another direction in our companies.
The right priority
Although new ideas are essential, maintain your energy on what is more relevant is a challenge to be accomplished. Sometimes, saying “no” is more important than saying “yes”. Also, it does turn us to a day-to-day skill that all entrepreneurs should learn: prioritization, but it is a topic for another article. You have been thinking, is this text is about focus? Well, it is! Nevertheless, the main question is about energy waste, and prioritization too.
*A pivot usually occurs when a company makes a fundamental change to their business after determining (usually through market research) that their product isn’t meeting the needs of their intended market.
