
The Weinstein brothers are flailing. Why? Lack of focus. - adamhowell
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/business/media/16wein.html?ref=business
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adamhowell
Classic case of a once successful company losing sight of what originally made
them great:

"SO what happened? In part, the Weinstein Company is coping with the same
problems facing every other studio, most notably the grim slowdown of the DVD
market. But plenty of the Weinsteins’ wounds are also self-inflicted. Instead
of using their lush, Goldman-fueled pile of start-up money to focus on
filmmaking, the brothers ventured into such new realms as fashion (buying part
of Halston, the once-storied label), online social networking (through A Small
World, known informally as MySpace for Millionaires) and a piece of Ovation,
the cable network."

~~~
trapper
It's so easy to do. When I first started my business and got some early
success, I thought "this is easy" and tried to do four other businesses at the
same time, all bootstrapped from the revenue generated by the early success.
That was easily the biggest mistake I have ever made :)

Now I just throw all those ideas into a drawer and ignore them, tantalising as
they are!

I can't imagine the temptation given the resources these guys had.

~~~
GHFigs
_Now I just throw all those ideas into a drawer and ignore them, tantalising
as they are!_

I second the importance of _having_ such a drawer.

I once heard Jim Coudal talk about how at his company they have "The Book",
where they put exciting but fruitless ideas, and how often they know before
acting on them that that's where they belong.

Since starting such a file, that's been my experience as well. It makes it
easier to distinguish good ideas from ones that are just fun to think about,
and gives you the freedom to revel in an exciting idea with the knowledge that
you're not going to actually have to do any work on them. It also lets you
share ideas with others without being _that guy_ who is always talking about
things he's _gonna do_.

Just throwing them away and trying to forget about them doesn't work as well.
Recording them prevents the feeling that ideas are scarce and you might "run
out", because you have concrete evidence that you already have more ideas than
you can handle.

