When the 80/20 Rule Fails: The Downside of Being Effective

The "80/20 principle" for founders

Traction: 80% distribution, 20% product

Growth: 80% retention, 20% acquisition

Revenue: 80% existing customers, 20% new leads

Pricing experiments: 80% positioning tweaks, 20% actual price changes

Brand building: 80% customer experience, 20% logo design

Sales: 80% listening, 20% pitching

Community building: 80% empowering... See more

Don’t divide your attention: focusing on one thing yields increasing returns for each unit of effort.

At a micro level, an extra hour of focus on the current project has a much higher return than an hour on something new, or worse, 5 minutes each on 12 new things. Before you ever do something new, you should understand the opportunity cost vs. exis... See more