The Lesson About Focus That Cost Me 7-figures

For years my agency was stuck between $50k-$100k MRR

Then a quote from Steve Jobs changed everything

12 months later I was doing well over $200k MRR

Today I'm going to share with you the lesson I learned

What Does Focus Really Mean?

I heard this quote many times, but it didn't really click what he meant until I had made the mistake myself several times over

In 2017, I started an agency and scaled it to $600k MRR in 10 months

The issue was, I didn't think the business was 'sexy enough'

All around me I would hear of SaaS companies with insane success stories, and I believed that if I wanted to make real money, I needed to get in on the gold rush

So I delegated 90% of my responsibilities at the agency, and spent all my time launching a SaaS

I invested thousands of hours and nearly $50k

The result?

It flopped

I had no experience in building software, so I hired an agency who never delivered a working product

So I went back to the drawing board

And I launched a new SaaS. I invested thousands more hours, and another $50k

Flop

I forgot to check that we could acquire clients profitably via marketing before I build the product

At this time the crypto wave was happening, and I had a great idea for a new crypto based product

Surely this would be my ticket to the promised land

Wrong

12 months, another $50k and a crypto winter later, and I had another failed startup on my hands

At this point, I had spent 3 years neglecting my agency, and it had steadily grown to $1m ARR

Then I scrolled past that quote again:

"Focus is saying no to hundreds of good ideas"

Why was I chasing every good idea I had, when I already had a resilient business that was earning good money?

So I spent the next 12 months fully focused on the agency

And sure enough, revenue doubled

We grew from 6-20 employees, from 100 to over 200 active clients, and from $1m to over $2m ARR

Had I done that 3 years ago when agency economics were 2-3x better, who knows how far I could have taken it

That was one expensive lesson about the real meaning of focus

My takeaway? Shiny object syndrome is the silent killer I have to avoid