When to focus One idea and when to focus on multiple idea?

When you will get started with a project, you will have many ideas in mind. You will often get a thought in mind “to start only one” or “start multiple”.

There are quotes around the same, that “focus on one thing”. But these quotes go obsolete when you think about a big business like reliance, or jeff Bezos.

These businessmen have diversified assets.

1. Elon Musk (a few things but on scale with the very high amount of sales or high volume of sales)
2. Jeff Bezos (many things, high volume sales, and very high amount of sales)
3. Mukesh Ambani (B2B, and B2C)
4. Adani (B2C, and B2B)

As there are different founders, there are different focuses on companies too

1. Apple is a pioneer trillion-dollar company but only sells simple consumer products.
2. Reliance is a diversified company that is very hard to break
3. Amazon is a diversified company and has a lot of assets

The above examples prove that you necessarily do not to focus on one direction to become successful.

So, when does it really makes sense to focus on on and focus on multiple?

Well, let’s analyze the scenario

There are 2 things that is often required for a business

1. Technology
2. People

In some companies, the technology percentage will be higher, in some, it will be lower.

IPhone manufacturing can be automated and scaled but the end visual inspection should be done by a person, and the end layer customer support should be done by a person.

But how really to think about this and take the decision to build one or multiple products?

The resources to complete the whole business cycle.

What is the business cycle?

The business cycle is the process that a business follows. From finding a problem to analyzing the market, building prototypes, testing the product market fit, scaling, and doing customer support, everything comes in between.

Different types of businesses have different needs, some need more human power, and most of them need technology to scale.

The business cycle will have different components in it based on the size and structure of the company. 

1. A business can be as simple as drop shipping where you are just running ads and dropshipping from china to US (research and marketing)
2. A business can be a digital marketing agency where people run ads (marketing -> sales -> execution)
3. A business can be a company like intel where one specific product is sold to billions of people(research->engineering->content->marketing->sales or partnership->management)

Following The 7 Ps of business (which can be used in marketing) is the perfect way to think about it).

Businesses that successfully build their business by focusing on multiple ways, most importantly having the ability to make all the resources available.

1. Muskesh Ambani as an Enrepreneur

2. Jeff Bezos as an entrepreneur

Read: Jeff Bezos’s business and investment analysis

So, I should focus on all the ideas.

No, you should understand the number of resources you have, and your capability to make it happen.

What if I have nothing?

Well, in that case, focus on one thing properly, complete the whole business cycle before giving up, if successful then  diversify to another company or

pivot if you find out the business model is wrong.

The grass is greener is the other side effect

There will always be new product ideas, the product ideas that will be interesting and will look more profitable to you. But don’t get tempted.

if you have started a business then it would be highly recommended to complete the whole business flow and then take a decision. This will give you the ability to understand and execute a business as an entrepreneur.

The shiny entrepreneur

Media: 18-year-old guy builds 100cr+ company

1. Turns out, the company lost 378cr to make 130cr in business. LOL!
   And people order from another app when the prices are high. Even in Bangalore. Very few people would be able to afford it, and in the economy that is likely going to be affected by the recession, people would love to save money by walking to physical stores and save money. As per 16th Dec 2022, a lot of businesses have stopped hiring, people aren’t changing jobs, so the effect is quite visible, and looks like zepto will likely end up not having enough funds.

I personally like to be a long-term focused and balanced entrepreneur than a shiny little entrepreneur whose valuation goes $1B and after a few years, the company gets closed. You can be if you prefer to but I personally don’t like to work on bad business models.

ie: I would never work on a business model like zepto

I prefer businesses that are strengthy by nature and implement 4I (Innovation, Implementation, Inspiration, and Independence) diversified.

Innovation: Spend 20% of resources on innovation

Inspiration: Look at the industry and competitors, and build similar features if it’s a hit. (No shame in building similar features, if google and fb and Twitter do)

…

1. Interesting reads: How to measure the strength of a company.
2. Read: Consumer tech becomes a cash cow for Reliance