Focus: What Every First-Time Founder Needs to Know
In the early days of building Flocktory, I learned a lesson that every founder eventually faces: focus isn't just important - it's everything. Let me break down exactly why this matters and how to exe
The Reality of Founder Mode
Here's what nobody tells you when you start: being a founder isn't about being a CEO. It's about being obsessed with details. Not just some details - all of them.
When we were building our marketing engine at Flocktory, I wasn't sitting in management meetings. I was in every engineering discussion, understanding exactly how we were solving real customer problems. Not because I had to, but because that's what moves the needle.
Why You Can't Delegate Understanding
Most founders make the same mistake. They hire a product manager and think they can step back. That's exactly wrong. Here's why:
Every major product breakthrough comes from connecting two things: deep customer understanding and technical implementation. You need to know both sides intimately. When your engineer suggests an architecture change, you need to understand exactly how it affects your customers. When your customer requests a feature, you need to know precisely what it takes to build.
The Focus Framework That Actually Works
Let me be specific about what focus means in practice. At early stage:
1. Understand Every Detail
- Sit with customers until you know their problems better than they do
- Be in engineering discussions until you understand exactly how you're solving these problems
- Connect these dots personally - don't delegate this understanding
2. Say No to Almost Everything
- New feature requests? No
- Market expansion? No
- New technology stack? No
Until your core product is exceptional at solving one specific problem, everything else is distraction.
The Real Metrics of Success
You know you're doing it right when:
- You can explain every technical decision and its business impact
- Your team debates solutions with you because you understand the details
- Customers talk to you about problems, not features
When to Scale
The most common question I get: "When can I start delegating this deep involvement?"
The answer: When your core product is so dialed in that it's almost impossible to get wrong. At Flocktory, this happened when our segmentation engine was 10x better than anything else in the market. Not just technically - but in solving real customer problems.
The Hard Truth
Look, this isn't what most founders want to hear. Everyone wants to be the visionary CEO. But at early stage, that's not your job. Your job is to understand every detail of your product and its impact on customers.
This paid off for us. When we sold Flocktory, it wasn't because we had the most features. It was because we built the best product.
The Action Plan
If you're starting out:
1. Pick one customer problem
2. Understand it deeply
3. Be involved in every aspect of solving it
4. Say no to everything else
5. Repeat until you're unbeatable
That's it. That's the whole playbook.
The Bottom Line
The market doesn't care about your vision. It cares about whether you solve real problems better than anyone else. That only happens when you understand every detail - from customer need to technical implementation.
Stay focused. Stay in the details. That's how you win.
Everything else is just noise.