Day 13 — How to know what to focus on in your startup

Wasting a load of time on irrelevant research can prove fatal to your business.

Most of the tasks you do are really a complete waste of time.

The truth is..

20% of the things you do, get you 80% of your results.

I wanted to know…

How do you quickly distinguish between the key things that will actually move your business needle and the things that won’t?

Here is the method I found…

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STEP 1: Write your 3 month business milestones

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Define what you want your business be making in 3 months.

I decided $5K in 3 months was a reasonable goal.

OK.

That means if my product is $50, I need to sell 100, ($50 x 100 = $5,000)

Simple right?

Now ask in order for that to happen in 13 weeks, what needs to happen?

1. I need a product to sell! So I need to talk to manufacturers ASAP.
2. I need to make sure the customers I have in mind will buy the product and I understand why customers buy — which means I need to Build Customer Avatars and test my market.
3. I need to test potential sales channel ideas. Come up with channel chart — Test different channel ideas/Online Website/Landing pages with facebook and google adds- evaluate other channel options
4. I need to make sure the idea is investable. Build a pitch deck. Business model canvas. Test pitching it to angels.
5. I need advisory board of experts in my field to advise me.
6. I need to register the company.

Add here any other assumptions you think are super risky and if you are wrong about your company will fail…

For my business I added…

7. I need to make sure its all legal.

These 7 goals are your Three Month Business Milestones (13 weeks)

On a daily basis, you should be accountable to whether you are moving the needle on these goals or not.

If what you are doing at any point in the day isn’t related to these goals, you are wasting your time!

Being efficient is really that simple.

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STEP 2: Hold Yourself Accountable

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Now you have your key three month milestones set, you need to read them;

1. First thing in the morning before you start work
2. At lunch before you begin work
3. Before you close your laptop at night.

After you have read your milestones each time, ask;

Will what I am planning to do right now get me closer to my 3 month milestones?

How? Is it really getting me closer?

A quick example of this in action…

I was working on my product today obsessing about what ingredients I would put in it. I asked myself how this activity was contributing to my three month goals? I thought well…its getting me closer to a final product to sell which was one of my milestones. Then I asked myself is it really getting me closer to having a final product? Then I realized that it wasn’t. I could do the same research a lot more efficiently by calling manufacturers who would have a far better idea than me what should go in the product and if they could do it. I could come up with a perfect list and the manufacturer could throw half of the ingredients out and that was time wasted. I realized it made way more sense to get guidance from the manufacturers first. I switched my focus. I got my answers a lot faster…

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STEP 3: Hold yourself accountable

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This is the last step in the process.

At the end of each day, you should keep an accountability record to ensure you stay productive.

Contained in this accountability record, is the date today, the things you did on that day and how those activities got you closer to achieving your milestones. That’s it!

Remember: Everyday that you don’t do anything that contributes to your Three month milestones is a day wasted.

Conclusion…

This exercise will help you focus on the things that will make a difference in your startup and will move your business needle. Try it and thank me later ;)