whether I blame VCs or conventional wisdom or Harvard Business School, but like somehow sometimes I feel like founders are being told you don't have superpowers.
Like your best superpowers to delegate as opposed to you can literally get things done that takes other people two, three, five, ten next more effort to get done.
But you can't do 100 things with your superpowers, right?
Like you can only choose a couple places to focus.
And focus seems to be the game of the game.
Hello, this is Dalton plus Michael, and today we're going to talk about focus focus.
We both have been kind of reflecting on how companies, especially in the past year have figured out how to succeed.
And we keep coming back to the same thing.
Yeah, it's almost like succeeding is focusing.
And when things don't go well, we're not focused on the problem.
We weren't focused on the right things.
That word focus comes up so many times.
And I think it all goes back to what we remember from elementary school or high school when we had homework.
Which is, when you have homework, you would come up with all these great excuses on why this was not the optimal time to do it.
My favorite shows on, oh, dinner.
I don't have the right stuff.
Like, oh, whatever it was.
And what we learned is you would never get the homework done until you actually focused and you stopped doing everything else and there was no other distraction.
And that was the only time it ever got done.
And we as humans, this is the cycle that happens over and over and over again.
And what's funny is it goes all the way from an individual contributor trying to build a feature and needing to focus on just getting the features shipped to literally the CEOs of very large organizations.
Like, one way to think about this whole founder mode thing is focus.
Is the founder being focused on the nuts and bolts of their business instead of being distracted with all this noise?
It's weird because I've been trying to figure out when did the idea that complexity equals winning get into people's heads.
Because you remember, like any of the business people who people admire, like Warren Buffett, right?
Like simple investing strategy, just like fucking clean.
Jeff Bezos, he has like big three things that make Amazon work.
Or looking at Google, where it's like, hey, like all this decoration over here, we're the biggest search engine.
When did the idea that like complexity in being 80 products in 25 surfaces is the way to win?
Where did that come from?
I think this is one of those debates.
where there's no one earnestly on the other side.
And everyone say, no, I'm focused.
Like I think this is one of those where there is no, it's a bit of a straw man to be like, oh, focus is bad.
I believe in not focusing.
And instead it's this insidious thing where life creeps up on you and you say to yourself, I'm being focused.
But you're not really auditing what you're spending your time.
You're not auditing what you're paying attention to and it kind of creeps up on you.
Well, I would take a shot.
Okay, I think perhaps and test my my logic here as an organization gets bigger People want to take credit for things
And I think that like, hey, if we're only focusing on two or three things this year, and there's like direct people responsible for those things, well, how do I look good?
I guess I could help those people with those things, but can I really take credit for them?
Let me try to get a fourth thing on the agenda.
But those people would argue they're being focused, and the fourth thing is important.
And we must focus on the four things.
Well, and I think that's the funny thing is because I think that this whole founder mode conversation is happening.
Perhaps in the beginning of the year, the prevailing thought was like, great, my job is to manage a team of people who are focused on things, but I don't have to focus as a CEO or as a founder.
And now the mentality is like, oh no, whatever is the top three things on my list are the only things that are going to move.
Yeah, I think the conventional wisdom was the founder should be focused, but they should be focused on managing the managers.
Like what's the old... Yeah.
Yeah, what's the old thing?
I remember hearing this, you know, and again, I'm not saying it's wrong or anything, but it was the CEO's job is to raise money, hire great talent.
And communication with the... Yeah, yeah.
And basically to manage the managers.
And otherwise, like that was the job.
And you can see that's actually, that is antithetical.
The idea of being in all the details, being in the weeds, that is very antithetical.
I think the other thing that's interesting about focus is I think that sometimes founders forget how powerful of a force they are in a company.
I'm gonna give like a really specific example.
I've seen this with sales a lot.
I've now encountered maybe four or five YC companies that have between five and $10 million in sales and like less than two to four salespeople total, including the founder, which is way against conventional wisdom.
Like, how did you do that, right?
And there's one company in my mind that has, you know, 50 plus million sales and has like less than five salespeople.
Well, the only way to get more money is to hire more salespeople.
And one of the things that keeps on coming up in conversation is that when the CEO is focused on sales, the people that the CEO can meet with at the company is trying to sell are always
bigger, better decision makers, people who can move fast, people who can actually decide things.
Where when you get like junior salesperson number 25 trying to sell something, they end up talking to PM disempowered bullshitter who has to get like 80 levels of approval.
And so it's been amazing to see founders who decide focusing on sales is the number one thing and then being able to produce the work
of like so many salespeople.
And it seems to me that it's like founders have superpowers.
I don't know whether I blame VCs or conventional wisdom or Harvard Business School, but like somehow sometimes I feel like founders are being told you don't have superpowers.
Like your best superpowers to delegate as opposed to you can literally get things done that takes other people two, three, five, 10 next more effort to get done.
But you can't do 100 things
with your superpowers, right?
Like you can only choose a couple places to focus.
And I think that's always been so interesting just for me to see whether it's product and being like, I'm actually going to be in the product and see how it works or it doesn't work and try to fix it or sales.
It's like, focus seems to be the game of the game.
is the counterpoint though.
Like someone who's listening right now is like, I am focused, but if we were to like audit their calendar, we would basically say their number one priority is getting 20% of their time.
Yeah, maybe let's give some examples.
Let's give some personas.
So let's give the persona of we're talking to someone and they want to start a startup.
Say they're a student or they have a job and they're like, oh, I want to do a startup.
I'm so happy to meet you or whatever.
And the conversations usually go a couple of ways.
But the most common path is I'll say, great.
Do you have a co-founder?
And they're like, well, no, not exactly.
The answer is not a simple yes or no.
And I'm like, well, first thing is you should think about that.
You should walk down your co-founder.
I would argue that's a very focused response.
And then second, it would be like, cool.
What are you going to build?
And who will the first customer be?
And often the answer to that is very complicated.
And it's like, well, this and well, that.
Or if they do have an idea, I'll say, okay, well, have you built anything and given it to people in any form?
Like, I don't know exactly what they need.
I got to talk to more people first.
I've been doing research on the market.
Which is all totally fair.
I think the advice here though around focus is just do that checklist.
Do you have a co-founder?
Have you built a thing and given it to anyone?
And if you can just say yes to those, you're ahead of the game.
And I would argue you are focused.
But if the answer to those questions are like pretty
I would use the word complicated where I couldn't even summarize.
It's like several paragraphs of explanation.
I think another persona would be someone that's a YC alum.
They were focused during the batch.
And then you talk to them.
Well, you know, the thing that worked during the batch, you know, I'm trying to figure out, can we do it better?
Can I hire more people to help me scale faster?
There are these features that users want.
I feel like I should build them.
Oh, we have board meeting now.
And so I got to figure out how to do that well.
Oh, like this other kind of esoteric part of my organization is not working really great.
It's causing me headaches, like customer service, causing me headaches and becomes this menu.
I have to do these 15 things.
You know, actually, and what even comes up more often is like this, like this thing worked on the batch.
And here's the reason why I can't do what worked anymore.
Instead of like, hey, how about a simple strategy of like, keep doing the thing that works?
How do we shake them out of that?
I think the big gotcha when this comes up in office hours would be like, should I focus on growth or retention?
or should I focus on building the product or sales?
And so you guys told me to focus, right?
Oh, you guys said to focus, but I have, yeah, should I be doing sales or building?
And again, totally fair point, by the way.
But that's feels, that's like the gotcha response to what we're saying.
When I actually think about a founder that I have that conversation with, like there's almost always no nothing burning going wrong in the company.
It's like kind of a fake crisis.
You know, it's like when you talk to a founder where like something is burning, like, oh, our product went down yesterday based on usage.
The conversation is never like, but should I be selling or did it?
They're like, how do I get the product to not die?
Whereas before that, it's like their job is to make something people want.
And the meta thing is that like they're not making something people want.
And like they're coming up with other reasons why not working on making something people want is important.
And especially it's hard because then when they hire more people, it becomes even more distracting.
So they can't work on making something people want.
Here's how I try to cut through the bullshit.
Does anyone love your product?
How do I make a to-do list?
Can you get one person to love the product?
This is something I'll often ask in interviews for YC.
Are you using your product?
And a lot of times people are like, they weren't expecting that.
Well, it never occurred to them.
They could be a judge of whether the product is good or not.
Again, for a lot of developer tools, no joke, you could be the first user and it's a good sign if you're like, yeah.
And when you think about it, that's the easiest sell in the world to sell yourself.
I think that you should try to make yourself happy with a product.
Again, this doesn't apply to all startup ideas, but there's a whole category of startup ideas where you can just be your first user and there's no barrier, there is no sales risk.
Because the customer is you, but you have to build something that you're excited about.
You know, it's funny when I see people talking about that, the number one comeback is like, but how do I know that other people will like what I like?
And the first assumption is that like, even though I'm starting a company, I'm not a good arbiter of what's good.
Which I love is how do you, well, how do you expect to build a huge company?
Like I can't tell what's good.
Like I have no idea how it's good.
Like you kind of have to believe you have some sense of what's good.
I think my usual response is like, maybe, but you got to start somewhere.
One of the things I think about a lot, recording this towards the end of the year, is that year end is a really good time to reflect on these kinds of questions.
You have enough time, hopefully, separated from the day-to-day work, from the meeting schedule, and also the people around you,
you know, you mentioned this as we were talking, like they expect change, right?
Like people in the new year, they expect things to get mixed up.
You're not screwing with them if you change the calendar, change the schedule, change the deal list over the course of the holidays.
And I think that really good founders take advantage
of the holidays, not only to recharge, but to almost, I mean, to refocus, to audit what isn't important and get rid of it.
If you think about that, if you can't even name or articulate the goal, how are you ever gonna hit it?
And so step zero is to take the time to breathe and think and set the goal.
This is what I went to accomplish this year.
And then put all of your energy into focusing on that, to manifest any to make it happen.
One thing I love in this kind of exercise is also like, what am I willing to give up?
What am I willing to divest from?
I think people don't give themselves permission to say, I'm going to be bad at these things.
I'm going to not focus on these things.
Aren't I supposed to be able to do everything really well?
I think my final takeaway from this conversation is that
So much of the power to do this is in the founder's hands.
There's no one you need to get permission from to focus.
There's no meeting you have to have.
There's not an authority figure that's like, you are bestowed with focus.
This is completely something you can do.
And if you do it, you'll inspire others to do it, which is kind of neat.
So many things in companies, you kind of have to like build a coalition.
Any final thoughts on this?
I've been meeting with a lot of companies over the past few weeks and it's crazy for the folks that are doing the best.
It's often the shortest meetings.
And it's the simplest explanation of what's going on with the business.
And that's what good looks like.
And again, every business goes through ups and downs, but one of the signs that you're really in there, you're really in the slot, you know, you're in your happy place is that
The problems are clear in front of you.
What you're doing is clear and you can really feel like you're putting all of your effort into that one thing.
I'm so happy you said that because for me when I'm having those conversations, the words and the concepts are simple.
It's like, this is my customer.
This is what I do for them.
This is what we're going to do to help solve problems for them better.
This is how I make their business better.
The sentences the founders say are just not complicated semi-colon-dub questions.
Like, you know, a high school kid could clearly understand everything being said and be like, yeah, that makes sense.
What's the opposite look like?
I think it's where you just feel like you're in the fog of war and everything's confusing.
You're not really sure what's going on.
You don't know what's going on in your business.
You feel pulled multiple direction.
You just wake up every day unsure in this gray, murky area.
You know, it's funny because when I talk to founders like that, the uncomfortable truth that feels like it comes out
is we're not really helping anyone as much as we need to.
Like our product really isn't making any customer's life good enough so that we get direction, the customer's pulling it out of our hands.
We're not helping enough.
And I really wish, we're talking about your own reflections,
Man, the companies that really help their customers, they know it.
Things get a lot simpler.
It's a lot easier to focus when you're like, I really help my customer really appreciates when this is done this way and I can do it this way.
And it makes their business much better.
When you're like, oh, like, you know, like it's like a decoration.
It's like, oh, like, well, but they're not using it the right way.
Like when you're not making your customers lives better,
It's easy to be in the fog of war, and maybe it's time to step back and be like, maybe we need to make a product that makes our customers' lives 10x better.
So anyways, focus is winning.