Staring at the tree only made me more likely to hit it.
I was maybe 8 years old, riding my mountain bike around our neighborhood, trying not to hit a tree… by staring right at it.
Did you ever ride a bike as a kid and find yourself looking at a tree or maybe a signpost, thinking “don’t hit the tree” but somehow magically steering right for it?
I hit a big branch on that tree. Actually bruised my nose doing it. I’m convinced trees have a special tractor beam that only works on 8 year olds pedaling a Giant. But anyway.
The point is focus.
Where we focus, we go. It’s as true on a bike as it is building a product.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. ~Stephen Covey
How we nearly went wrong focusing on the wrong thing
We’re building a product analytics tool that isn’t like other product analytics tools. Everyone says that, but of course we think we’re special ;)
There’s one big feature we talk about building. It’s hard to build. It could be costly. But it would be 100% original in the space. But what if we could find someone with the knowledge of how to do it… and buy that knowledge?
We fixated on something other than the main thing. We have a product that can do so much. If we don’t invest the time and effort into selling it, there’s no point adding functionality.
We need to focus on the main game: helping our customers today.
We have to keep looking for opportunities and chances to grow the product. We can’t all focus on it because if we do we’re likely to get exactly what we’re focusing on — a feature rich product with too few customers.
What’s the atomic unit of value?
It can be a workflow or a use case or a function. Whatever it is, the atomic unit of value is the main thing we sell. And to us as business owners, selling that atomic unit of value is the main thing.
Accoil solves several specific use cases. Want to convert more trial users to paying customers? We can help? Need to keep more customers longer? We can help.
Adding functionality that helps us do those things better is great. But we have to sell the product we have today, even while working to make it better.
Don’t stare at trees
Spend too much time staring at the tree and you’ll run right into it. Same goes for business opportunities that aren’t the main thing. Stare too long and it becomes the direction you’re going.
Find the way back to the main thing.
Peter
PS: If you find yourself “staring at trees”, hit reply and let me know. Happy to chat about it and help bring focus back where it belongs if I can.