"Lorsque je rencontre les fondateurs d'une nouvelle entreprise, mon conseil est presque toujours de faire moins de choses"

The main idea here is all about focus. When someone starts a new company, they often have a million ideas and want to do everything at once. But the advice given is to scale back—do fewer things, and do them well. It's like if you're trying to juggle; you can manage a few balls, but toss in too many, and they all come crashing down.

Historically, this advice has been given countless times in the startup world. Entrepreneurs, brimming with enthusiasm and ambition, might feel like they need to diversify their efforts to capture every opportunity. Think back to the dot-com bubble in the late '90s. So many startups tried to be everything to everyone, and most of them failed spectacularly. They spread themselves too thin. In contrast, successful companies, like Google in its early days, started with a single focus—search. Only after mastering this did they branch out.

Now, imagine you’ve got a startup. You're passionate about sustainable living and you’ve got ideas ranging from eco-friendly home products to a green energy consulting service. It's tempting to launch them all. But if you do, you’ll likely end up doing a dozen things poorly instead of one thing really well.

Take the example of Instagram. Initially, it wasn’t the multifaceted social media giant we know today. It started as a simple photo-sharing app with filters. That’s it. They honed in on this one idea and executed it flawlessly. And look where they are now—after nailing that one thing, they expanded.

So, how do you apply this wisdom? Start by identifying your core competency. What's the one thing your company can do better than anyone else? Focus on that. Set other ideas aside for now. It’s not that you’ll never get to them, but they can wait. Right now, your attention should be laser-focused.

Here's a more relatable scenario. Picture you're hosting a big dinner party. You could try to cook a seven-course gourmet meal, but you’re not a chef. Odds are, something will go wrong, and it’ll stress you out. Instead, what if you made a killer spaghetti Bolognese? You know the recipe by heart, and you can add a simple salad and garlic bread. It’s fewer dishes, but you can make them really well. Your guests are happy, and you’re not a frazzled mess.

This same principle applies to your startup. Start with a dish you know you can nail. Once you have that down, you can think about adding more to your menu. And remember, it's okay to set aside some of your ideas. They don’t vanish; they’ll be there when you're ready.

So, think about what you’re juggling right now. Is there something you can put down to make it easier to keep the rest in the air? Focus on fewer things, and watch how much better you’ll do. Less is often more, and in the world of startups, that can be the difference between success and failure.