How To Focus On The Right Problems

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. Yeah. Like, your best superpower is to delegate as opposed to you can literally get things done that takes other people two, three, five, 10 x more effort to get done. But you can't do a hundred things with your superpowers. Right?

Like, 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 gonna 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 theme. What do you think? What have you seen?

Yeah. It's almost like succeeding is focusing. Yes. And when things don't go well, it's it's we're we're not focused on the problem. We weren't focused on the on the right things. Yes. Like that word focus comes up so many times. Yes.

And I think it all goes back to what we remember from elementary school or high school when we had homework. Yeah. Which is when you have homework, you would come up with all these great excuses Yep. On why this was not the optimal time to do it. I'll do it later. I'll prepare later. My favorite show's 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. Yeah. And that was the only time it ever got done. Yes. 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 Yep. And needing to focus on just getting the feature shipped to literally the CEOs of very large organizations. Yeah. Yeah. Like one way to think about this whole founder mode thing is focus. The founder being focused on the nuts and bolts of their business Yes.

Instead of being distracted with all this noise? Isn't that 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 know, you remember, like any of the business people who people admire like Warren Buffett, right? Yeah. Like simple investing strategy just like fucking clean. Jeff Bezos. Yeah.

His 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. Yeah. When did the idea that like complexity and being 80 products and 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. Just, you know, 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 that you're not really auditing where 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 at I don't agree with that. Okay.

I think perhaps, and test my logic here, as an organization gets bigger, people wanna take credit for things. And I think that, like, hey, if we're only focusing on two or three things this year Yeah. And there's, like, direct people responsible for those things, well, how do I look good? I I could I guess I could help those people with those things, but can I really take credit for them?

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. Yes. Right? Well, I think that's the funny thing is because I think that this whole founder mode conversation's 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. Yeah. And now the mentality is like, oh, no. Whatever is the top three things on my list are the only things that are gonna move. Yeah. I think the conventional wisdom was the founder should be focused, but they should be focused on managing the managers. 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, Vision. Vision. Yeah. And communication with the Yeah. And basically to manage the managers. And otherwise, like that was the job. Yeah.

And you can see that's actually that is antithetical. Yes. The idea of being in all the details. Yes. Being in the weeds. Yes. That is Very antithetical. It is antithetical.

I think the other thing that's interesting about focus is I 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 5 and $10,000,000 in sales and like less than two to four salespeople total, including the founder, which is way against conventional wisdom. Like, did you do that? Right? And I I have this 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 hire more salespeople and da da da da. 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's trying to sell are always bigger, better decision makers. People who can move fast. People who can can 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 keeps coming down.

It's like, founders have superpowers. I don't know whether I blame VCs or conventional wisdom or Harvard Business School, like somehow sometimes I feel like founders are being told you don't have superpowers. Yeah. Like, best superpower is to delegate as opposed to you can literally get things done that takes other people two, three, five, 10 x more effort to get done.

But you can't do a hundred things with your superpowers. Right? Like, you can only choose a couple places to focus. And I think that's always been so interesting to for me to see whether it's product and being like, I'm actually gonna be in the product and see how it works or doesn't work and try to fix it or sales. It's like focus seems to be the game of the game.

What do you think 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 Yeah. They 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. Yeah. 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. They're like, oh, I want to do a startup. I'm so happy to meet you, whatever. And you talk to them. 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 exact.

You know, the answer is not a simple yes or no. And I'm like, Well, first thing is you would just think about that. You should walk down your co founder. I would argue that's a very focused response. Yes. And then second, it would be like, cool. What are you going to build? And who will the first customer be?

Yep. And often, the answer to that is very complicated. Yep. Yep. And it's like, well, this and well, that. And if they or if they do have an idea, I'll say, okay. Well, have you built anything and given it to people in any form? Yeah.

And what do they say? Oh, not yet. Like, I don't know exactly what they need. I got to talk to more people first. Yeah. I've been doing research on the market. Yeah. Is all totally fair.

I think the advice here though around focus is just do that checklist. Yeah. Get through it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a co founder? Yeah. Do you have an idea?

Yeah. 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. Yes. But if the answer to those questions are like pretty complicated, I would use the word complicated where I couldn't even summarize. Yeah. Like, it'll Yeah.

It's like several paragraphs of explanation. Yeah. I think another persona would be someone that's a YC alum. Yes. Yeah. So they were in YC, they know us, you know, they did the batch. They were focused during the batch. They were super focused, they were growing, and then you talk to them and, you know, what do they say?

Like, let's walk us through that. 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 gotta figure out how to do that well. Oh, what about PR?

Oh, like, this other kind of esoteric part of my organization is not working really great yet. It's causing me headaches, like customer service Yeah. Causing me headaches, and becomes this menu of I have to do these 15 things. Yes. 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? That comes up a lot. How do we shake them out of that? Well, how about this? I think the big gotcha when this comes up in office hours would be like, should I focus on growth or retention? Oh, that's a fun one. Or should I focus on building the product or sales? Yeah.

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. Fair. Yes. But that feels that's like the gotcha response to what we're saying. Yes.

Yes. 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? Because, 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 da da da?

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. Yep. 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? How about this? This is something I'll often ask in interviews for YC.

Yeah. Are you using your product? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of times people are like, they weren't expecting that. No.

Well, they it they it never occurred to them. Yeah. But they could be a judge of whether the product is good or No. Again, for a lot of developer tools like Yeah. No joke. Yes. You could be the first user. Yes.

And it's a good sign if you if you're like, yeah. Yeah. And and when you think about it, that's the easiest sell in the world to sell yourself. And so Is it though? Is it though, Dalton? I I think I think that you should try to make yourself happy with a product. Again, this doesn't apply to all startup ideas.

Of course, 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. No. 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. Yeah. Which I love. Because how do you well, how do you expect to build a huge company like, I can't tell what's good. Like, 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 gotta start somewhere. Fair. Fair. One the things I think about a lot, you know, recording this towards the end of the year is that, like, year end is a really good time to reflect on these kinds of questions. Right? You have enough time hopefully separated from the day to day work, from the meeting schedule, da da da da.

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 calendars, change the schedule, change the do 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 to audit what isn't important Yeah. And get rid of it. If you think about that, if you can't even name or articulate the goal Yeah. How are you ever gonna hit it? Yeah. And so step zero Yeah. Is to take the time to breathe and think and set the goal. Yeah.

This is what I want to accomplish this year. Yeah. And then put all of your energy into focusing on that, to manifest and 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.

Like, aren't I supposed to be able to do everything really well? Right? Yeah. 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 That's right. There's no meeting you have to have. Yeah.

You know, there's not an authority figure that's like, you are bestowed with focus. Yeah. No. 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. No coalition needed. 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. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And it's the simplest explanation of what's going on with the business. Yes. The simplest And that's what good looks like.

Isn't that funny? 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. Yeah. You know, you're in your happy place is that the problems are clear in front of you. What you're doing is clear. Yep. And you can really feel like you're you're putting all of your effort into that one thing.

I'm so happy you said that because it's for me when I'm having those conversations, the words and the concepts are simple. Yeah. Right? It's like, this is my customer. This is what I do for them. This is what we learned. Yeah. This is what we're gonna do to help solve problems for the better.

This is how I make their business better. The sentences the founders say are just not complicated, semi coloned up questions. They're just simple. Yeah. 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? Not like that. Again, it's hard.

We've all we've all been there. God knows I have. Yeah. 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 with the business. You're confused. You feel pulled multiple direction.

You just wake up every day unsure in this, like, 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, we're 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.

Like, it's we're not helping enough. Yeah. And I really wish you know, we're talking about your own reflections. Man, the companies that really help their customers, they know it. Things get a lot easier. Things get a lot simpler.

It's a lot easier to focus when you're like, I really help my 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 when you're not making your customers lives better Yeah.

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 10 x better. So anyways, focus is winning. Good luck. Great chat, man. Thanks.