Want To Build A Successful Company… Stay Focused

George Roberts

February 11, 2011

When I was trying to determine what to name my blog, I thought about the characteristics that are inherent in all great software companies. Hence the blog name, “Software Strategy, Focus and Execution”.

As a former operational executive with 30 years of software experience, I have seen companies do it well and companies do it poorly. Now as a venture partner at OpenView where we invest venture capital in expansion stage software companies, I get the chance to leverage all that experience on “how to do things” and “how not do to things” to coach and mentor Founders and/or CEO’s and their management teams.

One thing I am constantly reinforcing in all my discussions in operation reviews and board meetings among the portfolio companies with which I work is FOCUS as one of the keys to building a great company. I am sure they are all sick of hearing about it but I will continue to remind them of the importance of focus going forward. In fact, at OpenView they call me the CFO for Chief Focus Officer because I constantly remind everyone in the firm why it is important for the firm, in addition to our portfolio companies, to stay focused.

That is why this blog, written by Martin Zwilling from the Founders Corner in the Business Insider, is a must read for all founders, CEO’s and their management teams.

The title is “Six Reasons Being Focused Is The Greatest Determinant Of Success” and Martin makes six points in the blog:

  1. Time to market is critical
  2. Keep infrastructure costs low
  3. Need to be nimble
  4. Innovate to market leadership
  5. Maintaining quality is key
  6. Personal bandwidth is limited

I enjoyed the blog and I hope you do as well. If so please forward it to your teams and other people who can benefit from the reminder that focus is a key determinant of success!

If you want to read a couple more blogs I wrote about Focus, you can check them out here and here.

All the best!

G

Venture Partner

<strong>George Roberts</strong> is a Venture Partner at OpenView. He enjoys partnering with companies and helping them achieve their goals through strategy, focus and operational execution. From 1990 to 2003, George spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, most recently having served as Executive Vice President of North American Sales. While at Oracle, George was responsible for over $1 billion in revenue and more than 2,000 employees, reporting directly to the company’s CEO and Chairman, Larry Ellison.