“If people don’t occasionally walk away from you shaking their heads, you’re doing something wrong.”
From the reactions I often get from people after I tell them about having such a narrow focus with our business – I’ve decided I seem weird – and in many people’s eyes – I am missing out. In fact – this is funny. I also have a really narrow focus in my personal life too. I love to fly fish in shallow salt water for one kind of fish – the Red Drum. Day in and day out (minus the occasionally trip somewhere else) I have no interest in any other kind of fishing. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the time. Or maybe it’s because I am OK with a small success ratio because it’s just so damn rewarding when it all comes together after focusing and learning and applying what I’ve learned. I mean, rarely does a red drum eat my fly – and it’s not because he is not hungry. It’s because the timing was wrong. It’s all timing. The timing of the tide, the wind, the cast and the direction the fish is headed. Maybe the fly was stripped towards him…which is opposite what his natural prey does. Maybe the wind blew the cast a little too close and the fly just appeared literally out of nowhere…which is weird to him too. Maybe the fish was looking down at a real live crab in the mud and not above him where the fly made of a steel hook, glue and feathers was presented. You get the point. It happens way less than a typical fisherman would want it to happen – but when it happens, it’s exhilarating and a feeling of accomplishment that can not be felt by fishing with live bait for anything that swims by the boat. So that one single fish caught makes for a great day on the water. One fish.
That’s what so hard to understand I guess. Wes, you mean, you tie your own flies for hours and hours and spend so much time focused on catching ONE lousy fish when you go out? And you throw him back? Huh? Weird. Wes, you only sell to restaurants when so many other kinds of businesses could use Schedulefly? Weird. Why not use live bait and fish at the jetty or at the wrecks? You’ll catch so many more fish. Why are you not licensing your software and partnering and integrating with other companies who can get your software into hospitals and retail giants and on and on?
There are so many more fish in the ocean than your catching. Your missing out!
Not really.
Wes