The Giant Flaming Sword of Doing Stuff Right (And Why Most People Wield It Backwards)
There’s this thing called "focus." Everyone loves saying the word focus. VCs say it when they’re hinting you should stop wasting money on your 16th side project. Self-help books say it like they’re revealing some ancient secret, except they do it in 42 chapters, which is the opposite of focus. And founders? Founders love pretending they’ve nailed it…but let’s just agree most of us are really just very professionally distracted.
Today, we’re not gonna talk about just "focus." We’re gonna talk about FOCUS, like the kind that turns a stray beam of sunlight into a laser that can set stuff on fire. Let’s explore this superpower, break it down way too much, and give you a plan to actually stop doing stupid stuff you’ll regret later.
Step 1: You’re Already Screwing This Up, But That’s Okay
If you’re a founder building Something Big?, the odds of you focusing on the right problem are about equal to the odds of your dog successfully solving a Rubik's Cube during a thunderstorm (low, but technically possible).
Why? Because our brains are these hyperactive creatures that love chasing shiny things while screaming things like, “BUT WHAT IF I FIXED EVERYTHING?”
A Very Important Stick-Figure Thing About Fire
Imagine this:
Point is, you might think you’re focusing, but are you focusing on THE FIRE?
Step 2: Simplicity Isn’t Boring, It’s Underrated (And Probably the Reason Jeff Bezos is Smiling Right Now)
Some of the wealthiest people on the planet got filthy rich because they mastered Step 2: Stop Making Things Stupid Complicated?.
Cue Exhibit A: Warren Buffett. Buffett basically made an entire career out of picking a few good investments and eating five billion calories’ worth of McDonald’s every day.
What’s his thing? Focus. On good companies. On clear value. On not messing around with everything else (and apparently on Coca-Cola).
Cue Exhibit B: Jeff Bezos. Before Amazon was “Everything You Could Ever Want + Free Shipping,” it was something Bezos obsessively simplified:
Books. Just books. He laser-focused Amazon on what customers needed—easy access to books—and ignored everything else. Decades later, here we are, still throwing money at him.
Translation: Simplicity isn’t laziness. It’s genius hiding in plain sight.
Step 3: Embrace the Weird Superpower That Makes You a Star
Here’s a secret nobody tells you enough—You’re a freak. And that’s a good thing. Somewhere in your founder DNA is a superpower that lets you do certain things faster, better, and smarter than most people.
The problem? Everyone keeps telling you to delegate stuff.
Sure, delegation is important. But if people like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs decided to outsource their most insane ideas or decisions because “delegate everything” was trendy, they’d be failing at the exact thing that made them great.
Moral of the Story: If your superpower is helping you crush product development, focus the heck out of it there. Don’t let anything or anyone distract you from what you’re disproportionately better at compared to the world.
Mini Section: An Actual Sorcery-Like Sales Move
Key trick founders miss: Focus on sales early on. You’re the founder. When you sell, you’re the one who gets to have conversations with the big dogs. It’s like this shortcut nobody talks about:
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So yeah, put on your "sales hat." You won’t regret it.
Step 4: Throw Your Dumb Distractions into the Abyss
You want to know what most startups die from? Pretending everything matters. Spoiler: everything doesn’t matter.
Founders waste a lot of time doing Task X and Project Y because somebody convinced them that More Stuff = More Winning.
Reality check: If you do 20 projects half-well, you’ll make no progress. If you do two projects and nail them 100%, you’ll crush everyone. Math is on your side on this one.
Here’s a cute mental trick:
Step 5: Does Anyone Actually Love What You’re Building? If Not, Fix That Now.
Alright, gut check time, founders: Are people genuinely pumped about your product, or have you somehow convinced yourself that lukewarm smiles and hesitant “Yeah, it’s cools” are validation?
If the vibe isn’t “HOLY MOLY THIS IS AMAZING,” then you’re solving the wrong problem. Focus all your energy on making people truly fall in love with your product. Without that? Nothing else matters. You’re gonna stall out.
Step 6: Be Your Own Guinea Pig
This one’s simple: If you wouldn’t use your product, why are you selling it to anyone? You have to be the first user or at least the first champion of what you’re building.
Think of it like this:
Step 7: New Year, New Focus (Stop Being Lazy About This)
Every year, we’re hit with this magical moment when the calendar flips, and everyone’s all “New me!” except nobody actually changes. Don’t be that person.
Take 30 minutes this New Year to sit down and ask yourself, “What’s THE most important thing for my company next year?” Then, act like everything else can be ignored.
Letting go of low-priority junk isn’t failure; it’s permission. You’re not Superman—you can’t save the world and start solving parking lot design problems simultaneously. Save the world first. Worry about parking lots later.
Final Thought: Focus Is The Cheat Code For Winning
Every story about successful companies boils down to this: They focused. It’s the secret sauce everyone knows but nobody respects. Meanwhile, companies that tried to do 10,000 things at once burned out and disappeared.
So, if you take away one thing from this, let it be this:
Focus is a superpower. Put all your energy into the real problems, ignore the fake ones, and stop messing around. You’ve got this.