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Lost At Sea. Focus on the Lighthouse!

by Barney Austen on February 22nd, 2010 | Comments

Two and a bit years ago, I had an idea for a business based on a perceived market need from my own experience as a professional services manager. I did some market research and had that need quantified sufficiently that I felt it was worth investing the time (lots of it) and cash (not an insignificant amount) to turn that idea into a reality. I had a goal, a purpose and a vision of what I wanted to bring to the market.

All was going well, but early in January this year, I started to feel “lost at sea”. Direction and focus seemed to be absent. This was after being dynamic and up-beat before the festive season. So what happened?

Simple! I went out to ask people to test what we had done and got some real and honest feedback. No longer protected by the sweet sounds of friends and family telling me what we were doing was great – I had real business owners and my potential customers giving me their opinions.

I had been so closeted in my own little world of creating something new and useful, that I had lost sight of the fact that some people would not like what I was doing and would tell me that or that they would bombard me with useful suggestions on what the product should do. I hasten to add that all of this feedback was done with the best of intent and goodwill by those who participated and I am extremely grateful (some of them are reading this post – you know who you are!)

So how did I react? Total panic! The concept was a disaster, it was too different to our competitors, it didn’t do certain “things that would be useful”, no-one would use it… blah, blah. There was total re-writes of functionality planned. Emergency sessions were held with my business partner (God bless his patience!). The family was driven up the wall…. and then….

I sat in a meeting with our delivery partners who simply said “your product is designed to do X – this was the vision you brought to us and it still makes sense.  Why are you getting in a panic?”

And that was all it took. Someone on the outside looking in to give me some perspective on what I was doing before I ripped the heart out of the product and put us back from a commercial launch by at least six months. Sure, all of the feedback was taken on board and some of the recommendations are being put in place. Will it be enough to get all of our beta-testers to come on board – nope! But this is ok, we cannot be all things to all people. We have to start small and grow ourselves as the market dictates over the course of time.

Now my head is straight again. There is a definite roadmap to commercial launch again and the panic is over. The lighthouse is in view and the rocks have been avoided (at least for this bit of the journey!)

Have you ever felt like this with your business? What did you do? Or did someone steer you true again?

Category: Leadership

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The Author: Barney Austen

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  • paulmullan
    Nice post Barney and glad you are back on route.
  • Too right you were Facundo - this is all your fault :). Kidding of course. I agree with you on the over-abundant feedback, we seek it all the time and the mediums for receiving it are increasingly available making it sometimes difficult to focus on the hear and now. Thanks for the comment.
  • Hey Barney, glad you saw the light again. I'm probably one of those confusers you mention :) I must say that lately I've been feeling that we are living times of over-abundant feedback and I guess this is in line with what you described. Sometimes one has to push something and then pick up suggestions along the way as you say.
  • Barney, an idea becomes a product as soon as people are prepared to spend money on it. A product becomes a business as soon it generates profit that can be grown. A business becomes successful once this process can be managed in the most efficient way. All other questions merely act as supports. Pay no attention to anyone who is not prepared to buy your product, pay all your attentions to those that are. Remember, If you are all things to everyone, you do not have a market, if you have no competitors, you do not have a market and so on.
  • Hi Barney. I just saw this video http://carsonified.com/blog/web-apps/9-ways-to-... from the founder of Digg. Some interesting points!! Have a look
  • Great video - thanks Fred.
  • The whole reason for a business plan and market research and analysis is to get our heads into the "zone". What is more important is to come back out of it and get a wide angle view and ask ourselves"does this feel right? Is this the value direction I was heading - am I still heading there? does it mean changing some detail or strategy direction?
    I think the 3 basic points made before me are spot on - if it felt right at the time, then it's right for you. All you have to do then, is find the others it is right for, and maintain self-belief and belief in your product/service.
    I get that sense from you, so looks like you are back on track, until the next bunch of rocks. Keep scanning for that light...
    Great post Barney, I adore real life stories about fear/panic/oh dear moments, because by the time I read them, the person has normally come out the other side :)
  • Thanks for the comments Elaine. Have indeed come out of this particular "panic" moment!
  • And the "panic" won't stop there Barney. Or, putting it another way, if you look at many companies in the early years of their existence, they go through several iterations, repshaping the products and value proposition based on market response. It's to understand when to hold firm with your own convictions and when to adjust based on market feedback.
  • Agree :)
  • LewisEvans
    I think that you and just about everyone who comes up witha new idea does or should go through this process. I have often thought that it would be helpful to build a group of business friends for exactly this person. people whom I can trust to speak their mind and give constructive criticism.

    It's a very valuable process that can be difficult to go through unless you have the right people around you. I have a friend that I am helping through this kind of dilemma on a couple of his projects right now. It's already helped him ditch one idea that was a waste of time, and think more clearly about how to communicate the new concept that his other project contains. It's complicated and sophisticated, although it has huge benefits and an essentially simple basis. However, it's newness demands that he pays a lot of attention to finding simple, effective and efficient ways to demonstrate its qualities.
  • Nice one Barney! Glad to hear that the lighthouse is in view again :)
    It's normal that in our journey to deliver a product or service we forgot that we weren't there to provide the-full-360-experience, but something specific of high value.
    If you conducted good market research and your gut told you there's a great opportunity for that specific solution in the market... during times of "panic" you should go back to that research or business plan and if after reviewing it, you still feel that the opportunity is out there, trust your gut, forget about more opinions and go for it man! :)
  • Hi Fred. Point well made on reviewing the original research and plan - it is really important to do that as well even if you are not "in a panic"! Thanks for the comment.
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