From: alexhormozi
Growing a business is challenging because it often defies expectations. The core principle for success lies in the singularity of focus [00:00:15]. Entrepreneurs are constantly presented with opportunities that can distract [00:00:17] them, and as a business grows, these opportunities become larger and more difficult to say no to [00:00:22].
The “Woman in the Red Dress” Analogy
The concept of distractions [00:00:55] and new opportunities is likened to the “woman in the red dress” from The Matrix [00:00:28]. In the movie, this figure serves as a test by Morpheus to teach Neo to stay focused despite tempting visual distractions [00:00:46]. If Neo had continued to look, he would have been confronted by Agent Smith [00:00:52].
Similarly, in business, shiny new objects [00:00:57] appear more and more attractive at every level of growth [00:01:00]. Entrepreneurs must learn to say no [00:01:07] repeatedly, even after previous successes, because the allure of new opportunities intensifies [00:01:12].
The Trap of Multi-Venture Entrepreneurship
Many entrepreneurs believe innovation [00:01:18] is paramount, but the vast majority of business success comes from consistently executing the basics [00:01:21]. An example is a friend who runs 60 businesses, collectively making eight figures annually [00:01:26]. When asked how easy it would be to grow just one business to $30-50 million if he could eliminate the others, he admitted it would be “so easy” [00:01:41]. This realization led him to shut down numerous ventures to focus on his biggest opportunity [00:01:55].
True success comes from doing one thing exceptionally well [00:02:04]. Companies like Facebook, led by Mark Zuckerberg, achieved massive scale by focusing singularly [00:02:03] and not getting distracted [00:02:20].
The Power of the Basics: “Better, More, New”
Success in business is about “doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself you’re smarter than you are” [00:02:22]. It’s the depth and nuance of understanding and executing details that yield dividends [00:02:29].
Many entrepreneurs prioritize starting new ventures or add-ons before mastering their current basics [00:02:57]. For instance, if a business isn’t active on every relevant platform, consistently email marketing, building SEO, or optimizing sales training, it shouldn’t be pursuing new endeavors [00:02:39]. Being “advanced” in business means never neglecting the basics [00:03:06]. Big businesses do the same things as small businesses, but they do them better [00:03:17].
The Business as a Leaky Bucket Analogy
Consider a business as a bucket, with water flowing in (traffic/eyeballs) and holes allowing water to escape (inefficiencies) [00:03:23]. To grow the amount of water (profit/customers), the first step isn’t to get more buckets, but to:
- Fix the holes in the existing bucket [00:03:37].
- Increase the flow into the fixed bucket [00:03:41]. Only after maximizing these two steps should one consider adding new flows or buckets [00:03:45].
This leads to the mantra: Better, More, New [00:03:51]. Always prioritize doing what you’re currently doing better first, as it’s the lowest-risk opportunity [00:04:04]. This includes things like better follow-ups, better copy, better creative, site optimization, and improved team training and management [00:04:08]. While this may sound “boring,” it’s how big businesses grow by filling all the known inefficiencies [00:04:18].
Create a list of the top 25 obvious things that would grow your business if you did them consistently (e.g., more emails, more outreach, more content, better sales training) and focus on completing that list before pursuing anything “new” [00:04:27].
The Spiritual Difficulty of Staying Focused
Many entrepreneurs receive positive reinforcement for starting new things early in their journey [00:05:01]. This teaches them the “wrong lesson” – that starting new things always leads to good outcomes [00:05:04]. However, at later stages, starting new ventures can be detrimental [00:05:14]. The shift must occur from constantly seeking “new” to relentlessly pursuing “better” [00:05:19].
Once a business achieves product-market fit (i.e., people are buying what you’re selling), the focus on “new” should end for a while [00:05:23]. The priority becomes filling the “holes in the bucket” by making things better, and then scaling by doing more of what works [00:05:29]. This means increasing content output, sales staff, or video editors for an existing, optimized process, rather than creating new products or services [00:05:34]. Businesses that do this consistently will grow by default and outperform competitors who divert resources to new, unfocused ventures [00:05:46].
An entrepreneur who commits to doing one thing better and doing more of it will build a stronger business than one who constantly pursues new, exciting projects, causing their existing business to wither [00:06:01].
Strategy vs. Execution: Simplicity Wins
The difficulty in business isn’t the concept or strategy, which is often easy, but the execution [00:07:07]. For example, a dry-cleaning business that always delivers clean clothes on time will be exceptional [00:07:12]. The strategy is simple; the consistent execution is where most fail [00:07:18]. People often allocate too much time to new strategies and ideas instead of perfecting the obvious [00:07:23].
A seasoned “mercenary CEO” shared an analogy: instead of fancy, risky “trick plays” in football, focus on “simple backyard football” – consistent, boring yardage [00:09:35]. Don’t try to be “cute” [00:09:57]. If you consistently deliver clean clothes, on time, with good service for ten years, your business will grow automatically because competitors won’t sustain that level of focus and execution [00:10:07]. Business isn’t complicated; it’s hard because people struggle to stay focused [00:10:20] on the same thing for an extended period [00:10:24].
Success comes from believing in the business’s mission, which enables sustained effort for an extraordinarily long time [00:10:34]. Many highly successful people have been doing the same thing for a long time [00:10:40], like Ben Francis of Gymshark, who started at 17 and built a billion-dollar company by consistently focusing on one venture for over a decade [00:10:52].
The Arrogance of Divided Focus
It is “arrogant” to believe you can out-compete fully focused individuals when your attention is split across multiple ventures [00:11:41]. An entrepreneur dedicated to a lawn care business with a deep-seated mission will outperform someone juggling lawn care, drop shipping, consulting, and NFTs [00:11:57].
Any business can be successful if an entrepreneur dedicates themselves to focusing on one venture [00:12:45]. Thinking that the market will magically make one of your many ventures take off is misguided; you can force any viable business to be successful through sustained focus [00:12:52].
Someone trying to be “vertically integrated” with multiple, related businesses (e.g., roofing, real estate flipping, general contracting, windows) might simply be distracted [00:13:19]. Billion-dollar companies exist that do only one thing, like roofing [00:13:20]. Scale comes from mastering the details and achieving compounding returns by repeatedly doing the same thing better [00:13:29]. An entrepreneur with four ventures will never master any of them and will only achieve “barely good enough” results [00:13:36]. If you’re not making money in any venture, it’s because you don’t understand any of them well enough [00:13:41]. Success in any field is achieved by paying down ignorance in one specific area as quickly as possible to start the compounding clock [00:13:50].