[mryall]

> Focus is about saying “no”.

Always loved this advice from Steve Jobs, but it can be hard to put into practice in a startup.

From my own experience, I’ve found there is a strong temptation (and also external advice) to try many different things in trying to get traction.

[rimeice]

Love warren buffett’s quote on this topic. "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything." But totally agree it’s v difficult to decide what to say no to especially if you’re still honing PMF at a startup.

[dilawar]

Said a very successful person who can afford to say no to almost everything.

[ramraj07]

This is kinda misleading though. If you say no to everything then you literally won’t do anything. That can’t make you money unless you’re a trust fund kid. So obviously you have to say yes to some thing (s). The true essence of the message is that you have to say no to most things but still say yes to that one thing. Good luck with that!

[ojosilva]

Well the quote says "...to almost everything" not "everything, period".

From my experience meeting highly successful people, or whatever that means, meant deducing most of your interactions should have a straight no from you right away after listening attently, many times no eye contact is made (to make it more objectively perhaps). Then that "no" can be a blunt, almost out of place surprising no at the start "I don't like/see it", "not interested", "can't do that" etc. Which should quickly lead the conversation into solving your objections. Think of it as a figure of speech or a Socratic rhetoric. Once your petty or founded objections are resolved your "real no" may materialize as non-rhetoric. Remember, if you are the one saying yes or no it means you have some, if not all, leverage in that interaction.

Like I said, I've seen this from extremely rich, old money, people with whom I've interacted, so it's anecdotal and take it with a punch of salt. It's easier said than done anyway.

[tonyedgecombe]

There is a big difference between when you are starting out and once you are established. If you have any kind of success then there will be an endless queue of people knocking on your door with "opportunities". You soon learn that most of them are worthless and the sensible thing is to default to rejecting them.

[johnnyanmac]

it did say "almost anything".

>That can’t make you money unless you’re a trust fund kid.

Yes, Jobs indeed comes from a very priveledged background that can afford to send their kid to college, have them drop out less than a year later, then send them on a 2 year soul searching journey before founding and crashing 2 startup businesses. And Buffet was a son of a congressman who bought stocks at 11 and land at 15 (I dont think either of those things are even legal o do today at those ages).

They very much were trust fund kids.

[OJFord]

Sure but that is definitely not causal!

[ergocoder]

Don't say no when you have 0-10 customers lol.

[szundi]

Haha he started with some yes. Saying nos come later. Btw he was lucky his first yeses were bulls-eye.

[brandall10]

I worked at a well known B2B some years back that seemed to be successful in part because they allowed the customers to do whatever they wanted AFA custom JavaScript applet work, and then made a killing on support plans dealing with landlines those customer’s devs created.