The Magic Of Focus

I have long sought a challenge that I can build into a startup that will be bigger than me. And by following a circuitous path I’ve found that challenge (of which, more later).

Through the years I’ve heard all the advice to “do what you love and the money will come” or “to make a great business find a really painful problem to solve”. I have learned hard lessons pursuing both of these truisms.

The money will come

And it does — to a degree.

By background I am university trained in Traditional Chinese Medicine and many years ago I set up a women’s health clinic. I hung my shingle after writing a beautiful business plan about how busy I would get and how fast.

It was before internet marketing was really a thing (I did say many years ago), so I created pamphlets that I printed at home and stuck on my clinic’s reception desk and waited for the customers to roll in. And I waited. And waited.

It didn’t take long to figure out that I needed to build referral networks, explain what service I provided and professionalise my fliers and marketing. That was an important lesson to learn and soon had me on the way to the consistent 40 clients a week I wanted.

The problem was that in those years of running and growing (and eventually selling) the clinic I didn’t take a break. I was dealing with pregnant women in the main and I felt beholden to them and like I had to offer real continuity of care. I felt responsible because their experience of pregnancy could be enhanced significantly with complimentary approaches.

Of course, we all now talk about how projects will scale or whether or not we are solving big enough problems. Back in the day there was me in the clinic, with a small team of support and admin staff — I just couldn’t see a way to make it an interesting concept for investors because I couldn’t see how to scale myself at that point.

I was in the trap of trading money for time and I ended up burning out after almost a decade in clinic. When I realised I was I burned out, instead of taking a holiday like every other normal and sensible person, I sold up, moved from Australia to the UK and sought a new challenge in tech.

I ran as far away as possible.

Painful problems

I love figuring things out. I think I probably should have been an engineer or inventor if I had my time over again as I like to look at how things work.

I like looking at what process it takes to create things and I love trying to figure out how to make it better or create something entirely new.

Hence the move from women’s health to operations in fast growing tech startups.

I did my time learning my new craft and then went in search of a problem.

One that I found was for people wanting to aim for an exercise goal (0–5km run, ironman or marathon etc). They needed plans and equipment to start their journey. So I did my market research, got some wearable products (like fitbits etc), built a cool platform that converted pre-made training plans into calendar events so you would know what you needed to do in your calendar each day instead of having to take a big pdf and figure out what day it was and created a website. BOOM! Problem solved.

Well… not really. Big gap of research I was missing was how much marketing costs for B2C products and services and also the whopper — if you want a wearable you are more likely to go to Amazon or a big retailer directly to look for what you need. Bugger.

So I did an Amazon course to figure out how to sell things on there (cue awesome skipping ropes for crossfit) and realised a bigger problem that was chunkier and more interesting was the way the product descriptions and promotional material (photos, product information, videos etc) are sent from the manufacturer or distributor to the end retailer.

(Here is a little of the detail but it’s a bloody big problem that still needs to be solved so contact me if you want me to tell you about it).

This time I got myself into a situation where the manufacturer’s liked the idea but wanted to see the prototype before committing money and I needed their money (or to convince someone I was worth betting on pre-prototype and as a lone female founder) to be able to make the prototype to show them..

In the end I didn’t raise the money I needed for a number of reasons. Possibly the biggest was that I was trying to do it by myself and there were just too many things I didn’t know how to do and didn’t have the network for.

I couldn’t convince anyone in my circle that it was a sexy enough problem to solve and that I really knew what the answer was. One day. One day!

Stars aligning

Over the years I never really mentally left the reproductive health space.

I have continued to think and design/invent things for the pregnancy and women’s health space.

None of them were “the one” that would help me make it big but they have been fun projects that will now combine nicely as part of a well rounded set of solutions for women.

Flash forward with a few stars aligning starting with a conversation in a pub with a friend about one of my ideas which she liked so much she wanted to help me out.

In time that led to a tough conversation around ownership of the product and what it means to me. Through that process I’ve arrived at a very different proposition that combines what I love doing with a great problem to solve.

The benefit of friends

While discussing with my friend one of my product ideas for women my “day job” was setting up an operations agency instead of working the interim contracts as I had been doing for the last few years that had me on a continual boom and bust work cycle.

I thought I would do the two ideas in a twin track. Concentrate the majority of my time on creating the agency and then for fun thinking about the problem I was solving for pregnant women.

A very dear VC friend said to me that I needed to focus, and that if I was going to get the ops agency off the ground I needed to give it all I had — and I thought I was doing just that. One needs a little relaxation though, right?

When the tough conversation around ownership of the fun project happened I was caught a little unawares and I was devastated. I thought my friend and I were in it together but I realised that seeing how it was my idea, experience and cash that it made it hard for my friend to feel the same level of ownership as I did and she decided to step out.

Just 15 minutes after receiving the email saying she was out completely I had a meeting with an old work colleague and friend who always knows the right painful spot to kick when you are down.

He effectively told me to stop wasting my time on the ops agency, that my eyes didn’t light up in the same way when I talked about the fun project and I needed to sit down and give proper thought to the problem I was trying to solve and where it could actually lead to. While it put me into a tailspin he was absolutely right.

I’ve a proper passion for helping pregnant women normalise the things that happen in their pregnancy, reduce the fears they may have around birthing — hopefully help them have a positive birth experience and make the first months of having a baby a little easier for them.

I am fascinated by how companies work and love helping them, but in comparison I was faking it.

When I sat down and looked at the products I had “tinkered” with and my understanding of both the tech and women’s health space it all came together to be something way bigger than myself.

Sometimes you have to go away to find what you’re looking for was there all along.

The magic of focus

Having had two completely different work lives and experiences and a few “failures” under my belt when the actual big “ah ha” happens it really feels different. It’s like everything in my life is coming into focus.

It’s all I can really think and talk about, and this time people have come out of the woodwork to come onboard, help me and give me advice.

My ops agency was going to be good but it would have felt like a hard slog as it didn’t capture my focus like my fun project did.

My initial testers really like the idea and I’m building the MVP with my own money to get the data, learning and evidence of market demand that investors will want to see. And my word, was there ever such a wicked problem to solve.

From little things, big things will truly grow.

Watch this space…