Competition reveals truth. And Keith Code reveals an important (I say universal) truth in his motorcycle road racing book, “A Twist of The Wrist” when he says, “Attention, and where you spend it is a key element in how well you will function. Attention has its limits.” His point is sometimes you spend attention on throttle or lean angle and sometimes you spend it on braking. You get the idea – where and how much attention you spend depends on circumstances and success demands appropriate investments of this finite resource.
Startups are the same.
In my SaaS business, we try to spend attention appropriately across these 5 top level categories:
- Product
- Team
- Revenue
- Capitalization
- Differentiation
How much attention we spend on each varies but it’s a conscious division of a finite resource. If nothing else, it’s a valuable exercise in resource management and optimization that has helped us.
What top level categories you would choose for your business and why?
And by the way, here’s another great quote from Keith: “The things you don’t understand are the things that will take up most of your attention.”
Originally posted November 15, 2010 on my Posterous Blog