What’s The Focus?

Abhishek Balakrishnan
What’s The Focus
Published in
5 min readJun 30, 2020

What’s The Focus exists to navigate complex situations and problems by stacking layers of perspectives and insights in order to provide a clearer path forward.

This is the debut of our open-invite collaboration and knowledge sharing project, with a focus on entrepreneurship.

The monthly topic will be announced on the first week of each month. Add to the stack here!

How?… Through Focus Stacking!

What is focus stacking?

Andrew McCarthy (cropped for detail)

Focus stacking is a photography method where you stack and align a variety of photos of a subject together to create a clearer and more detailed image.

Here is my favorite example of Focus Stacking being used, by photographer Andrew McCarthy. He took over 50,000 photos of the moon, “taking photos in stacks at different exposure lengths, and switching between cameras” to produce one of the most detailed images of our moon.

Where is the value?

WTF + Focus Stacking = ?

The value comes when we encounter situations that leave us confused, overwhelmed or stuck on where to go next or how to focus our attention and resources.

A perfect example is when JFK announced our moonshot. We had no idea how to get there, what technology would be involved or even a plan on how to do so. At the time, it seemed impossible! The US just got John Glenn to orbit the Earth in 1962 and now we want to land on another world? We did it though, and were able to get 12 people on the moon by the end of the program.

A massive achievement for mankind. However, it took more than 12 to guide us there.

We got there by stacking the knowledge of incredible scientists, the experiences from brave astronauts and the learnings from failures and successes from over 50 missions we took to leave Earth and get closer to landing on the moon. The collaboration behind Focus Stacking is the key to help focus the next generation of innovators to be game-changers and reach milestones like the Moon…or Mars! Innovation comes from diversity of thought and stacking a theme of diverse perspectives on a given topic can help provide insight on opportunities for people to take action on.

Here are a few examples of what we mean:

Ex. 000 — Creating a clearer image

It can be helpful to dissect the problem into niches or smaller chunks, to see what we may have not been able to see before. Applying Focus Stacking to vague concepts or problems can help identify more details in a specific area or provide the clearest image of the overall situation holistically.

For example, how to navigate transitioning your business during COVID-19. There are a lot of overwhelming ambiguous parts to think about. In addition there is no one expert on how to do it successfully. However, there may be insight from experts, those currently going through it or those who have gone through something similar can provide advice or learnings on how to navigate specific elements like digital transformations, employee morale, agility in operations, customer experiences or mental health. When the details come together, they may allow a business owner right now to see what to focus on next.

Ex. 001 — Forging a path

Sometimes, we aspire to a destination with no clear path. The path to the moon was not created by one shot, but by learning from past brave attempts.

Through Focus Stacking and getting a diverse perspective from others, you are able to see outcomes of how others have done it before. You have an idea of what you can do and what not to do. And finally when it is time to forge your own path, originality can come from inspiration.

We see a lot of this in venture development. Mentorship and “trial by fire” is usually how businesses get off the ground. Some of the best startups have leveraged the knowledge of their partners, mentors and own iterations, to come up with the best innovative path forward to market. It is interesting to hear how different strategies take similar pieces and elements of what already exists. Stacking experiences together gives these aspiring entrepreneurs a chance to know certain outcomes. It is a chance where a variety of people with years of experience can give others a chance to save months of set-backs from sharing some of these learnings.

So what's our Moonshot? Why are we doing this?

We believe that entrepreneurship is the key to solving key problems in the world. It provides the ability to identify pain points and create disruptive solutions. It has removed barriers not only for the individual but it has also been able to empower a community or even raise the GDP of a country.

In addition, with the world being at the state it currently is with supply chain, community and institutional disruptions; it provides an opportunity to fuel the next wave of innovation to solve some of these problems pre and post COVID-19. The goal is to nurture and inspire entrepreneurial minds so they can serve others, live better lives, and create societal and personal wealth.

We may choose to go to the moon, or to Mars. We may decide to solve world hunger, or climate change. We may focus on community and creating a platform to bring more people to the table. And we may develop tools and technology to better lives. Whatever we may choose it’s not an easy endeavor, it can be lonely, challenging and anyone who is involved will encounter obstacles with it.

We are going to dive into a lot of topics that surround the entrepreneurial experience. This is supposed to be a discussion where a wide variety of experiences and insights are encouraged. Every conversation has a starting point, and we are looking to be the catalyst in ensuring a variety of thoughts are shared and everyone has a voice. You have something unique and important to say. There is no one right answer to do so but when you stack the layers of perspectives, experience, insight and opinions; what to focus on becomes clearer.

That's our moonshot! To create a collaborative common place for those looking to focus on advice from a diverse perspective.

So where do we start?

The monthly topic will announced on the first of each month. add to the stack here!

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Abhishek Balakrishnan
What’s The Focus

Entrepreneur, Brand & Experience Strategist, Venture Accelerator Executive