Stay Focused, Be Disciplined (Avoid the Sirens Song)
In The Odyssey, Circe the witch tells Odysseus that in his travels he must at all costs avoid the Sirens, a host of beautiful voices singing enchanting songs from a lonely island. They were irresistible. But, if heeded for only a moment, they caused sailors to abandon all good sense and caution — until they crashed their ships on the rocks and were destroyed.
So it is with the entrepreneur with a solution looking at a new problem/opportunity—not in the business plan. A curse of talented, creative technology entrepreneurs can be the pursuit of interesting but not economic applications of their technology. The failure to remain focused and disciplined to core business opportunities can be deadly. What typically happens is the technologist (whatever hat that might be—engineer, scientist) finds or is presented with an “interesting” problem that can be solved with the company’s intellectual property--- with a little work and thinking, etc. The problems that cascade from this innocent intellectual diversion can be catastrophic if not nipped in the bud—with finesse and diplomacy. Solving minute or interesting problems robs the company of a scarce resource—human talent time. Technologists can tend to enjoy solving problems and think less about the commercial value of solving the problem. This problem can creep up in a variety of ways, but all result in a distraction from the primary mission/goal of the company. Unfortunately, any wanderings from a fully vetted, agreed upon game plan (business plan) that doesn't allocate and link resources to results can cause the company to go in the dumper. Intellectually interesting problems/solutions should remain with academics and R&D labs, not with a start-up or early stage company. If you are the operating executive—CEO, President, whatever the title—or an advisor/board member, your role is to keep the company focused and on track. Although you do not want to stifle creativity, new initiatives must always be measured against the risk/reward of the commercial opportunity and resource constraints of the enterprise. Nothing scares off potential investors like an unfocused, undisciplined entrepreneur that doesn’t seem to be bound by the business plan.
In The Odyssey, Circe the witch tells Odysseus that in his travels he must at all costs avoid the Sirens, a host of beautiful voices singing enchanting songs from a lonely island. They were irresistible. But, if heeded for only a moment, they caused sailors to abandon all good sense and caution — until they crashed their ships on the rocks and were destroyed.