Work in a startup? Strategic focus is make or break.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to be a successful startup marketer, and whilst I certainly don’t have all the answers, I’m certain on one thing - strategic focus is critical.?

I’ve been on a bit of a strategy reading binge recently, and it’s been a very helpful and timely reminder as I look forward to our plans for 2024 - so if you’re in need of a refresher like I was I’ve put together a few thoughts.

Strategy is an incredibly overused word, and there’s loads I could talk about and debate, but I really like the way Richard Rumelt breaks it down in his book, ‘Good Strategy, Bad Strategy’.?

Good strategy:

• Makes sure you have explicitly articulated the core challenge or problem that the organisation is facing
• Specifies the approach you’re going to take, that you believe will overcome the challenge identified
• Details the coherent actions (that you genuinely believe are achievable) that you will take to tackle the challenge, making sure that all resources are aligned to deliver them

Here’s a very simplified example of this applied to Apple when Steve Jobs returned as interim CEO in 1997 (when it was two months from bankruptcy):

Challenge:?

Apple had strayed too far from its core mission, resulting in a cluttered product line. Customers couldn’t understand the offering and they were haemorrhaging cash in a very competitive market dominated by Windows-Intel-based PCs.

Guiding Policy

Massively simplify the offering to protect cash flow short term, keep Apple alive and in Jobs’ own words, ‘wait for the next big thing’ (two years later he launched the iPod)

Coherent Actions

• Cut the desktop range from 15 models to 1
• Make just one laptop product
• Kill the other parts of the business (e.g printing)
• Cut staff
• Pull out of 5 of 6 national retailers as meeting their demand meant too many different models

And here’s a quick (hypothetical) take on Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ platform:

Challenge:?

Coca-Cola identified a need to make a personal connection with consumers in an increasingly crowded beverage market. They realised that their brand, although well-recognized, needed a new way to engage consumers on a personal level.

Guiding Policy:?

The strategy was to personalise the Coca-Cola drinking experience and make it shareable through social media. By doing so, they aimed to create an emotional bond between the brand and its consumers and encourage user-generated content and word-of-mouth advertising.

Coherent Actions:

• Personalisation: Introduced bottles with names, titles, and other identifiers like "Friend" and "Star," making the product personally relevant to the consumer.
• Shareability: Encouraged consumers to share their personalised Coke bottles on social media with the hashtag #ShareACoke.
• User-Generated Content: Featured consumer stories and photos in their advertising, making consumers feel like a part of the brand's narrative.
• Global Scale: Adapted the campaign to various markets, with names and labels translated into different languages.

Good strategy needs all three elements - it’s how you avoid simply setting goals with no route to achieving them, and escape jumping into random tactical activity.

In my view, the most important outcome of a good strategy is the focus it forces.

Now when I say focus, I’m not talking about optimising your time and blocking your calendar to max your productivity. There’s a place for this, but I actually often find that my most ‘inefficiently’ organised days (where I have lots of time to think) are actually when I make the most significant breakthroughs.

Instead, I’m talking about ruthless clarity where everyone in your business or team knows the plan, and you interrogate everything you do to make sure it’s delivering against your strategy.?

It’s easier said than done (I know I’ve been guilty of chasing new ideas) but I really think that trying to do too much in a smaller business is not just inefficient, it’s dangerous (in a business sense, obviously). It can literally be the downfall of your business.

There are countless things you could do, but most of them you should not do.?

Not because they’re bad ideas in themselves, but if they’re not delivering against your strategy, they’re taking precious time away from something else that can deliver, and that’s something you simply cannot afford to do.

Learning to say no, often and confidently, is therefore a critical skill and one that sets you apart. It’s important in any business but in a startup the stakes involved are so much higher.

In true think piece style I’ll leave you with five questions to ask yourself:

• Can you clearly articulate your strategy?
• Do you explicitly call out the problem you're trying to solve? Or have you just jumped straight to a goal e.g. grow revenue by X%
• Do you have an approach that logically provides a solution to the problem you've articulated? If you were to explain the problem and then the approach, would someone else get why it should work?
• Have you got actions that can realistically deliver on that approach? Do you have a sufficient budget? Can your team deliver it with the time they have? (It's so easy to fall down here and list a load of actions that would work in theory, but are unachievable with the resources you have)
• Do you give yourself enough time for proper strategic thinking? For me that's about a day without meetings, where I can go for walks and think. Not try and fill every second with an audiobook/podcast (which is what I normally do) but actually allow myself time with no inputs for my brain to do thinking.