

The Scarcest Resource at Startups is Management Bandwidth - lfittl
https://www.blossom.io/blog/2013/06/26/the-scarcest-resource-at-startups-is-management-bandwidth.html

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quackerhacker
_I like to counsel that the best teams are often defined by what they choose
not to do._

Too very true. I usually over complicate my projects as well...and what every
colleague, firm, and even business class taught me...a refined niche is more
valuable than a swiss army knife.

There's a reason the saying " _there 's an app for that_," exists, because it
solves a purpose and fills a clear and concise niche. If I can't pitch the
core idea in one statement, I've failed before I've started.

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purplelobster
Why is a refined niche more valuable than a Swiss army knife? What if a Swiss
army knife is exactly what you need, where the integration of the features is
the killer feature? There are cases where the integration of a few features is
more important than either of them individually, and where the whole is more
than the sum of its parts.

~~~
quackerhacker
Your exactly right, with the fact that those features serve 1 purpose and 1
niche.

To clear a little confusion by what I mean on unrefined products, I can think
of a prominent Swiss Army Knife...Google.

If I asked you to convey to me what is Google as if I didn't know, you'd
probably say they're a search engine. While I don't mean to discredit all the
products Google has, they themselves have been known to kill off their own
products (Reader, Checkout, Buzz, Wave, ect) to refine a centralized purpose
(ex. if you sign up for youtube, you now have a google plus).

This is the art of the niche, bringing multiple features to form one cohesive
purpose.

~~~
purplelobster
Yes. For example, I'm working on a language learning web/mobile app, where the
value proposition is that you can use this one "Swiss army knife" tool to keep
track of everything, to study in a consistent way, and that works on most
devices all of the time. There are lots of great tools for language learning
out there, lots of flashcard apps, apps for learning to write Chinese
characters, for learning pronunciation, a great site with subtitled videos
etc. Learning a language takes many years though, and throughout that time
you'll be using lots of tools and lots of different resources, but they're all
walled gardens and isolated, and mostly work for just one or two platforms.
Switching between them and keeping data synced between all of them is a pain.
Also, who knows if you'll be using an iPhone forever, and whether they'll ever
come around to making an android version of that app you need?

I think this is a case where the integration of all the features and data is
more than the sum of its parts. The difficult part is knowing what the
essential features are, and providing something useful until all of the
necessary features are there.

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badclient
It's a bit naive to write such pieces without asking the question _why do
start up founders do this, really?_

Here is the entrepreneur's perspective.

After all, we are not dumb. We may love to work but most of us wouldn't just
want to take so many initiatives if we didn't get the impression that we must
to acheive goal x.

In this case, goal x is often more funding or traction. And as part of the
funding process, you get feedback about the milestones you must hit to get
your next round of funding. Moreover, you get shit load of very conflicting
feedback, in some cases by the same VC just on a different day.

Entrepreneurs trying to attack from many different angles are basically
hedging their bets due to a lack of clear signal from the market.

The solution to this problem is not as simple as the original post makes it
appear.

\--Entrepreneur

~~~
jacques_chester
Put another way:

    
    
        VC: I want you to put all your wood behind one arrow.
        Entrepreneur: Which arrow?
        VC: ... I gotta go.

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tosh
Great post by Mark Suster. I constantly struggle with analysis paralysis and
saying 'no' to opportunities that sound like a great idea at first. It's easy
to forget about added complexity and cost (e.g. technical debt, positioning,
marketing, support, documentation, expectations, …)

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pushkargaikwad
Couldn't agree more (I am writing this from my own personal experience),
Bandwidth is one of the (I think second) biggest internal reason for a startup
to succeed or fail, way too many people (including me) tried to chew more than
what they could swallow leading to waste of precious resources (time, money,
human skills) which eventually leads to half baked product and loss of focus.

The number one reason is of course, you doing things which you don't like, are
not good at and not enjoying what you are doing.

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codecrusade
But then startups are averse to General managers..

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benologist
Advertise your startup by republishing random startup stories for HN instead
of writing them! Genius!

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ankush14
another excellent guest post on the Blossom blog. keep it up guys.

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ldn_tech_exec1
the blossom blog is one of the best in the game

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dnlc
Spot on!

