A few times in a year i like to stop and look back and see where i failed
2009 has been a crazy year for me. Without getting into personal details my whole life went upside down in 12 months. And from a professional point of view i stopped TechCrunch and left a very comfortable position in the Venture World to start againwith new, unfunded, uncertain but promising projects.
The year is coming to an end and there are things i think i could have done much better.
I am thinking in particular about a couple of investments i was in charge of and that could have become more successful instead of simply getting out of race. I am also thinking about the sad end of TechCrunch France which i understand is pretty much dead after more than 3 years of pretty intensive efforts. I am also thinking about a couple of stealth projects i started this year and that will not come to life (at some point i will disclose them)
The reason for those failures is pretty much unique: an inability to really to focus.
Anything where i failed was clearly due to my inability to focus well on them and instead focus on something else. It is hard to realize you are not focusing when you believe you are investing time, energy and efforts but this is an illusion. Focusing is about concentrating your resources in 1 thing only. Anything else is an illusion of focus. It takes a failure to understand you were not focusing.
It does not mean you should only 1 thing. It means that the 1 thing that really matters to you should be your only focus meaning 90%+ of your time and energy.
As the year is coming to and end i made the decision to focus. Really focus.
Putting aside promising things is a hard thing to do. But i don't know any other option.
This is what i learned this year: focusing looking forward
