Focus on Achieving a Short Term Vision
One of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is controlling the mind. It could be managing the 50 different business ideas that keep popping in your head. Or obsessing over your long term vision instead of focusing on executing the short term vision. Controlling a wandering mind is tough.
When it comes to latter, Venture Capitalist Mark Suster provides some excellent advice on long term vs. short term vision. What’s more, he does it in the form of a metaphor. On his blog there is a post titled Why Entrepreneurs & VCs Should Focus on Basecamp, Not the Summit. In this post Suster provides a compelling metaphor to help entrepreneurs stop obsessing about their long term visions. Suster states:
So to entrepreneurs – don’t be so obsessed with “end game” as you are focused on building to an amazing basecamp position. That doesn’t mean to build products in an industry where there will clearly be structural challenges to ever become large. The summit eventually matters. And you still need to spend some time figuring out the basic economics of your business – at least for basecamp. Just don’t obsess on what life will look like in 7 years.
To understand the full analogy of the summit vs. basecamp metaphor I suggest you go to Suster’s blog and read this post in detail.