The Only List That Matters

It is that time of the year again, we will start seeing the lists — the list of the best companies, entrepreneurs of the year, best companies to work for, most promising ‘startups’ etc. It’s basically bloggers and journalists cooking up interesting stories to drive traffic to their websites and/or sell newspapers. They are hustlers too in their own version of the trenches, hustling hard to build their businesses. Hustle is always commendable.

As an entrepreneur, it is tempting to pay attention to such lists. It creates the impression that you are doing something right if you are on such a list. Entrepreneurship is like a marathon, a very very long run, but unlike a marathon, there is no clear finish line in the future that the entrepreneur can focus on. Press like that therefore feels like a milestone has been reached, progress is being made and the product/service is being validated.

Here is the catch though: all those lists don’t matter. The only list that matters is the one the bank manager never publishes — who is banking the most money i.e. sales and ideally, profitable sales. The annals of business are full of companies that executed very well under wraps.

If as an entrepreneur, you get engulfed in the PR, know why you are. Yes, investors read the press too. Yes, customers read the press too. But the only list that truly does matter is the growth in revenues and profitability. If you can show growth, you can convince investors to invest. To show growth, you have to convince customers to buy. That is an entrepreneurs primary job. The vast majority of times lists don’t add much value to driving growth.

The only numbers that matter are revenues and profits; profits ahead of revenues obviously. Let’s focus on those.