As you grow your business you will be faced with lots of potential, exciting opportunities. New customer segments, new markets, new product variants. Surely one would say that this is a good thing. And of course it is.
Yet — it is also one of the main reasons why companies never reach their full potential and sometimes fail.
Typically when you start out, life is simple. You identified a problem and target market (and if you’re careful about truly understanding the problem, it will be a highly targeted solution). You start delivering your product and hopefully get to product/market fit quickly. Clean, clear and simple.
Then you grow. And you see all these new opportunities. Often they are in adjacent markets. Sometimes they are more of a one-off solution but financially lucrative. Maybe they require just a few tweaks to your offering — or a lot.
The challenge is to say “no”, staying focussed on what truly moves you forward and gets you closer to fulfill your vision. Every opportunity is a potential distraction. Sometimes it is worth following the opportunity as it is aligned with your long-term goals. Often it requires the hard and painful commitment of gracefully declining the offer.
It requires relentless focus to dent the universe.