Focus, as Steve Jobs said, is about saying no.
The only dangerous competitors are focused ones.
Ergo there are things that even the most dangerous competitors say no to, and it would be worth thinking explicitly about what those are.
Jony Ive on what Steve Jobs taught him about the power of focusing:
“Focus is not this thing you aspire to…or something you do on Monday. It’s something you do every minute.”
A lot of companies don’t make it because in the process of trying to get many things right, they don’t get anything right.
Why are they in such a hurry?
A great company is a privilege, and it’s a privilege best earned through a singular product, not a collection of products. Entrepreneurs and creatives think about batches of products —creating an... See more
One of the things Steve [Jobs] would say [to me] because he was worried I wasn’t focused — he would say, “How many things have you said no to?” I would tell him I said no to this. And I said no to that. But he knew I wasn’t interested in doing those things. There was no sacrifice in saying no [to those things]. What focus means is saying no to... See more
Making few bets forces you to make hard decisions. It’s extremely hard to measure the value of something against some abstract and absolute notion of value.
Proponents of diversification argue that it takes the edge off of making a mistake. That would be a good argument if people acted the same way independent of... See more