Think more and do less.

When I was writing my book, The Flight of a Wild Duck, I intended to have a section on the lessons I learned over my fifty year career.  But after three years of working on the book which was already over three hundred pages, I decided to separate the lesson section. Now, two years after my book was published, I have decided to do the lessons. 

However, I am not sure as to the best way to do them.  I can post them to me blog, or to Medium or use Sub-stack.  I am also considering do audio and video versions, using TikTok and Youtube.  

Please share with me your thoughts either in the comments or send me an email to avram@avrammiller.com.

Below is an example.

Think More and Do Less

In my extensive experience working with early-stage companies for forty years as a board member, advisor, and investor, I have concluded that entrepreneurs are driven to make something happen and make it happen quickly. Making things happen is laudable, but making the right thing happen is essential.  

 At the early stage of forming a company, it is imperative to determine the opportunity first, develop a strategy for obtaining it, put together the resources to implement it, and eventually reap the rewards.   I call this OyStER (Opportunity-Strategy-Execution-Reward). You can read more about this here .

Changing course will be difficult and expensive once you start down a particular path, especially if you have already raised money. Of course, that is not impossible, but it would be far better to have made that change in advance.  

A great example is the founding of Compaq Computer, which was founded by Rod Canion, Jim Harris, and Bill Murto in 1982. All three founders were former senior managers at Texas Instruments. They left their jobs to start Compaq. The original IBM Person Computer was unlike any other IBM product as its design allowed for third-party software and hardware. I discuss this in my book, The Flight of a Wild Duck. The Compaq team decided to develop a hard drive add-in (5-megabyte Winchester disc from Shugart Associates). Then, they went out to raise capital. They meet with the legionary Ben Rosen of Savin Rosen (Ben had been a very successful tech journalist and then started the PC Forum). Ben met with the founders and was unimpressed with their concept. He correctly felt that many companies would offer this, and there was little value. He politely told them to return to the drawing board, and they did. It was not a drawing board by a placemat in the House of Pies in Houston, in which the idea of developing a portable version of the IBM PC was drawn. Compaq was one of the most successful technology companies of the 80s. Unfortunately, they did not successfully transition when challenged by Asian companies now producing what had been turned into a commodity, the PC. Their failure to do that is the subject of another lesson.  

There are many great opportunities, so you need to make sure you start with a great one. There are many strategies, so explore several and be clear why you chose the one you did. In thinking about the opportunity and the strategy, engage those who can help you think things out. Having a network of advisors and mentors is priceless. Of course, you must pay great attention to your instincts and intuition. You must have the conviction, even if this means ignoring what others are saying. But the process and dialog will help you think all this out.