Crunch time. 2 weeks left. Time to focus!

Hey!!! This Alabama Launchpad competition round is closing soon! With just about 2 weeks left, you should be thinking less about doing more and more about clarifying and polishing. In fact, you should really be focusing on removing as many distractions as possible. Because, with a field of roughly 50 companies, distractions are a death knell to your chances.

To that, I wanted to share my own recent experience. In my recent TEDx talk, I received very helpful coaching from the organizers on the concept of a “through line”. This is the idea that people will not remember your business if you don’t have a very coherent, single idea coursing through your entire talk. Anything that isn’t supporting that single idea should be removed (they called it “killing your darlings”).

Well, business strategy for early stage companies is much the same. And your goal is to show that in your business and reflect that in your business plan. A lack of focus is a great way to waste a lot of time and energy in your business and a lack of focus is a great way to lose your audience of judges… that’s bad for you and doubly bad when you’ve got $200K on the line.

So, take the next 2 weeks and remove complexity from your business and business plan. Focus and polish.

Good luck.