This article is an extended take from my earlier take on shutting down my 5-year-old startup.
The startup world worships focus. Here's why they're wrong.
There's a piece of startup advice that gets repeated so often it's become gospel: 'Focus. Do one thing and do it well.'
Paul Graham wrote about it. Steve Jobs preached it. Every successful founder seems to credit their success to ruthless focus.
And for five years, I felt guilty that I wasn't following this advice.
While building SimpleDirect Financing, I was also:
- Running ANC consulting (our parent company)
- Advising other startups
- Exploring new product ideas
- Writing and podcasting about founder lessons
I kept thinking: 'Maybe if I just focused 100% on SimpleDirect, it would work. Maybe I'm the problem.'
Now that I'm sunsetting SimpleDirect Financing after five years, I realize:
The portfolio approach didn't cause the failure. It prevented catastrophe.
And I'm writing this because I think the 'focus' advice - while well-intentioned - is dangerously misleading for early-stage founders.
The Cult of Focus
Let me start by acknowledging what the focus advocates get right.
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was dying. They had dozens of product lines, confusing branding, and no clear strategy.
Jobs killed everything except four products. The result? Apple survived and eventually became the most valuable company in the world.
Paul Graham's essay 'The Top Idea in Your Mind' argues that whatever occupies your mental energy most will get the best results. If you're splitting attention, you're getting mediocre outcomes across the board.
Y Combinator famously tells founders: 'Make something people want' and 'Talk to users'—both singular. Not 'make five things' or 'talk to five different customer segments.'
This advice works beautifully when:
- You've found product-market fit
- Unit economics are proven
- You need to scale fast
- You have clear conviction about the path forward
But here's what nobody tells you:
Most early-stage founders don't have any of those things. You're not scaling a rocket ship. You're wandering in the dark, trying to figure out if there's even a rocket to build.
And in that phase, focus is a liability.
My 'Unfocused' Journey (2019-2025)
Let me tell you what my portfolio actually looked like:
ANC - The Foundation
- Started: 2019
- What it is: Consulting business serving tech companies and startups
- Revenue: Profitable from year one, generated steady cash flow
- Time commitment: ~40% of my time
This was never meant to be my 'big thing.' It was supposed to be temporary—a way to fund SimpleDirect until it took off.
But it became the anchor that kept everything else possible.
SimpleDirect Financing - The Big Bet
- Started: 2019
- What it was: Embedded financing platform for home improvement contractors
- Customer base: 254 active contractors, 1,400+ registered users
- Time commitment: ~40% of my time (now going to ~0%)
- Outcome: Sunsetting in December 2025 due to broken unit economics
This was where I thought the magic would happen. Beautiful product, real customers, actual revenue. But fundamentally flawed business model.
ANC Startup School - The New Vertical
- Started: 2023
- What it is: Startup consulting and guidance for first-time founders
- Target market: University students and grads
- Time commitment: ~10% of my time
- Status: Growing
This emerged from realizing we had expertise helping founders - why not package it and make it more financially accessible.
SimpleDirect for Work - The Pivot
- Started: 2025
- What it is: AI-powered productivity platform for modern teams
- Products: Chat, Desk, Post, Finance
- Time commitment: ~10% of my time (going to ~40%)
- Status: Early launch, validations, first customers onboarding
This is what SimpleDirect should have been from the beginning—better market, better timing, better economics.
Looking at this list, the focus advocates would say: 'This is exactly the problem! You're spread too thin across four different businesses!'
Here's why they're wrong.
Why Portfolio Strategy Saved My Ass
1. Cash Flow Bought Me Time to Learn
Here's the reality of SimpleDirect Financing's unit economics:
Annual revenue per contractor: $1,500
Annual cost to serve:
- Customer support: $600-1,200
- Platform maintenance: $200
- Sales and marketing: $300
- General overhead: $200
Total cost: $1,300-1,900
Net margin: $0-200 (or negative)
Without ANC consulting providing cash flow, I would have had three options:
Option A: Raise VC
- Give up 20-40% equity
- Get pressure to grow at all costs
- Forced to make SimpleDirect work even when unit economics were clearly broken
- Lose ability to pivot cleanly
Option B: Go All-In on SimpleDirect
- Quit consulting entirely
- Burn through savings
- Hit profitability panic in 12-18 months
- Make desperate decisions to survive
Option C: Shut Down in 2021
- When we first saw the unit economics problems
- Before learning what we eventually learned
- Without the deep knowledge we now have
Instead, ANC consulting bought me five years to:
- Build 13 lender integrations
- Learn embedded finance compliance deeply
- Understand blue-collar market dynamics
- Discover why B2B2C is uniquely hard
- Figure out what actually doesn't work
That knowledge is worth more than forcing a broken model to succeed.
I'm not exiting entrepreneurship. I'm not getting a job. I'm not burnt out. I'm applying everything I learned to SimpleDirect WorkOS—a product in a better market with better economics.
That's only possible because consulting gave me a safety net.
2. Different Bets Taught Different Lessons (Cross-Pollination)
Here's what nobody tells you about running multiple businesses: the lessons compound across the portfolio.
From ANC Consulting, I learned:
- How to charge premium prices (which I failed to do with SimpleDirect)
- How to qualify customers properly (we let anyone sign up for SimpleDirect)
- How to set boundaries on support (we didn't, and it killed us)
- What enterprise sales actually looks like
- The importance of profitability over growth
From SimpleDirect Financing, I learned:
- Product development at scale
- API integrations and technical complexity
- How to build and ship mobile apps
- What unit economics look like in SaaS
- The difference between problem-solution fit and product-market fit
- What doesn't work (equally valuable as what does)
From ANC Startup School, I learned:
- How to systematize knowledge transfer
- Community building and trust
- The power of serving specific niches (international students)
- How to create leverage through content and education
These lessons don't stay siloed. What I learned from consulting about premium pricing is now influencing how we price SimpleDirect WorkOS. What I learned from SimpleDirect about API dependencies is shaping how we build WorkOS (we control the entire experience).
This is cross-pollination, not dilution.
If I'd only focused on SimpleDirect, I would have learned one thing: how to build a product with broken unit economics. That's not a transferable skill.
Instead, I learned:
- What works (consulting model, premium pricing)
- What doesn't work (low-price SaaS for blue-collar markets)
- How to pivot (portfolio gives you options)
That's a full education in building businesses.
3. The Real Risk Isn't Dilution - It's Single Point of Failure
Let me tell you about three founders I know who followed the "focus" advice perfectly:
Founder A: Spent 4 years building a B2B SaaS for restaurants. Laser-focused. No side projects. Raised $500k. COVID hit in 2020. Restaurants shut down. Customers churned 80%. Startup died. He's now working at Google.
Founder B: Spent 3 years building a consumer social app. Nothing else. Went all-in. Quit his job. Burned through savings. Never got traction. Ran out of money. Now doing contract work to recover financially.
Founder C: Spent 5 years building e-commerce software for brick-and-mortar retail. Solely focused. Raised seed round. Market shifted to online-first. Couldn't pivot (investors wanted the original vision). Acqui-hired for pennies on the dollar.
These founders weren't less talented than me. They were disciplined, focused, and committed.
They just had single points of failure. When their one bet didn't work, they had nothing to fall back on.
Compare that to my situation:
- SimpleDirect Financing didn't work? ANC consulting still profitable.
- SimpleDirect for Work doesn't take off immediately? ANC Startup School is growing.
- One market disappoints? We have other bets in flight.
I'm still building. They're not.
That's not because I'm smarter or worked harder. It's because I hedged my bets.
The Real Question: Focus on What, Exactly?
Here's where the "focus" advice breaks down:
When Steve Jobs said 'focus,' he meant:
- We've proven the iPhone works
- We're killing everything else
- We're going all-in on scaling this proven winner
When Paul Graham says 'focus,' he means:
- You've found product-market fit
- Don't get distracted by shiny objects
- Execute relentlessly on what's working
But when early-stage founders hear 'focus,' they think:
- Pick one idea on day one
- Ignore everything else for 5 years
- Never explore adjacent opportunities
- Go all-in before you know if it works
This is a catastrophic misinterpretation.
The Right Framework: Focus on Stage, Not Dogma
Here's the framework I wish someone had told me in 2019:
Stage 1: Discovery (Year 0-2)
- Goal: Figure out what works
- Strategy: Portfolio approach - multiple experiments
- Focus: Learning, not scaling
What this looks like:
- Run a cash-flow business (consulting, services, agency)
- Experiment with 2-3 product ideas
- Talk to customers across different markets
- Kill what doesn't work quickly
Metrics that matter:
- Are customers actually using the product?
- Are unit economics profitable at small scale?
- Do I understand the market deeply?
Why portfolio works here: You don't know what will work yet. Hedging lets you learn without betting the farm.
Stage 2: Validation (Year 2-3)
- Goal: Prove the model works
- Strategy: Focus on one bet, but keep safety net
- Focus: Unit economics and product-market fit
What this looks like:
- One product gets 60-70% of attention
- Cash-flow business gets 20-30%
- Kill the rest
Metrics that matter:
- Customer retention >80%
- Profitable unit economics
- Organic word-of-mouth growth
Why portfolio still works: You're testing if this scales. If it doesn't (like SimpleDirect), you have the option to pivot.
Stage 3: Growth (Year 3-5)
- Goal: Scale what works
- Strategy: Ruthless focus
- Focus: Distribution and scaling
What this looks like:
- 90% of time on the proven product
- Aggressive hiring and marketing
- Kill everything else (including safety nets if necessary)
Metrics that matter:
- Revenue growth (3-4x year-over-year)
- Market share
- Operational leverage
Why focus works here: You've proven it works. Now you scale or die.
Stage 4: Maturity (Year 5+)
- Goal: Diversify and compound
- Strategy: Portfolio approach again
- Focus: Building multiple assets
What this looks like:
- Cash cow product (80% revenue, 20% time)
- New experiments (20% revenue, 30% time)
- Acquisitions or strategic bets
Why portfolio works here: You've won one game. Now you diversify to protect and grow wealth.
SimpleDirect never made it past Stage 2. By year 3, we knew the unit economics were broken. That's when we should have pivoted—and thanks to the portfolio approach, we could.
If I'd been 'focused' on SimpleDirect with no other revenue stream, I would have been forced to keep pushing a broken model or shut down entirely.
Instead, I'm building SimpleDirect for Work with everything I learned.
The Survivorship Bias Problem
Every successful founder who preaches "focus" is suffering from survivorship bias.
Steve Jobs: We celebrate his focus at Apple. We forget his failures at NeXT (spent 12 years on hardware that barely sold). Apple's success was partially luck—he focused on the right thing at the right time.
Paul Graham: Y Combinator's model works for a specific type of founder (young, technical, can live on ramen, willing to risk it all). That's <1% of founders.
Jeff Bezos: Amazon famously focused on e-commerce. Except they also ran AWS, which became more profitable than retail. They experimented with phones, groceries, streaming—portfolio approach.
Elon Musk: Runs Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, Boring Company. If anyone should "focus," it's him. He doesn't.
The founders who preach focus are the ones who:
- Got lucky and picked the right thing
- Or are currently in the growth stage (Stage 3)
- Or are giving advice that worked for them in different circumstances
They don't represent the full distribution of outcomes.
For every focused founder who succeeded, there are 100 focused founders who failed catastrophically because they bet everything on one thing and it didn't work.
You just don't hear their stories.
What the Critics Get Wrong
When I tell people about the portfolio approach, here are the common objections:
'You're diluting your time and attention'
My response: I'm not trying to do five things excellently. I'm doing one thing excellently (consulting), one thing experimentally (SimpleDirect), and exploring options (Startup School, SimpleDirect for Work).
The goal isn't perfection across the board. It's survival while learning.
'If you'd focused 100% on SimpleDirect, it would have worked'
My response: No amount of focus fixes broken unit economics. If $1,500/year can't support high-touch service, working harder doesn't change the math.
Focus is not a substitute for a viable business model.
'You should have quit consulting and gone all-in'
My response: Then what? SimpleDirect's problems were structural (dependence on external APIs, wrong market, thin margins). More focus doesn't fix structural problems.
Going all-in would have meant burning through savings, running out of money faster, and making desperate decisions.
'This is why you didn't raise VC - you weren't committed enough'
My response: I didn't raise VC because I didn't want external pressure to force a broken model to work. We stayed profitable and independent.
That's not lack of commitment. That's strategic discipline.
When Focus IS the Right Answer
Let me be clear: I'm not saying focus is always wrong.
There are absolutely times when focus is critical:
1. When you've found product-market fit
- Customers love it
- Retention is high
- Word-of-mouth is growing organically
- Unit economics work
At this point, YES—go all-in. Kill side projects. Scale aggressively.
2. When you're in a winner-take-all market
- Network effects matter
- First mover advantage is real
- Competition is fierce
You can't afford to be second. Focus and sprint.
3. When you have deep conviction
- You've spent years in this industry
- You know the problem intimately
- You have unique insight
Then bet big. The risk is worth it.
SimpleDirect had none of these:
- ❌ Customers tolerated it, didn't love it
- ❌ Unit economics didn't work
- ❌ Mature market, no network effects
- ❌ I wasn't passionate about contractor financing
Focusing on SimpleDirect would have been stupidity, not discipline.
My Actual Philosophy Now
Here's how I think about it moving forward:
Early Stage: Portfolio for Survival
- Run 1 cash-flow business + 1-2 experiments
- Set clear milestones for killing experiments
- Don't fall in love with ideas
Growth Stage: Focus for Scale
- When something works, go all-in
- Kill everything else
- Scale aggressively
Mature Stage: Portfolio for Compounding
- Use cash cow to fund new experiments
- Diversify revenue streams
- Build assets that compound
The key is knowing which stage you're in.
Most founders mistakenly think they're in growth stage when they're still in discovery stage. They focus prematurely on something that doesn't work.
What I'd Tell My 2019 Self
If I could go back to the basement apartment in Waterloo where SimpleDirect started, here's what I'd say:
'Keep ANC consulting. It's not a distraction—it's your lifeline. But set clearer shutdown criteria for SimpleDirect'
If by year 2:
- Unit economics aren't profitable
- Contractors aren't actively using the app
- You're dependent on external APIs for core value
Then pivot. Don't wait until year 5."
But honestly? I'm not sure I'd change much else.
The portfolio approach gave me:
- ✅ Financial security to take risks
- ✅ Time to learn deeply
- ✅ Freedom to pivot cleanly
- ✅ Knowledge that compounds forever
- ✅ Multiple shots on goal
That's worth more than a singular focus that might have failed faster.
For Founders Reading This
If you're early-stage and someone tells you "just focus," ask them:
"Focus on what? I'm still figuring out what works."
If you're post-product-market-fit and spreading yourself thin, YES—focus ruthlessly and scale.
But if you're pre-product-market-fit, don't let dogma about "focus" prevent you from:
- Building a cash-flow safety net
- Exploring adjacent opportunities
- Hedging your bets
- Taking smart risks
The goal isn't to avoid failure. It's to survive long enough to find what works.
I've survived five years, learned invaluable lessons, maintained profitability, and I'm more excited about the future than ever.
That's not despite the portfolio approach. That's because of it.
The Bottom Line
The startup world worships focus because we only see the winners who focused.
We don't see the thousands of focused founders who bet everything on one thing, failed, and disappeared.
I'm still here. Still building. Still learning.
SimpleDirect Financing is shutting down. But ANC is thriving. SimpleDirect WorkOS is launching. ANC Startup School is growing.
Sometimes the best business decision is having multiple decisions to make.
What's your take on focus vs portfolio strategy? I'd love to hear from founders who've struggled with this—reach out on Twitter @TheGeorgePu or listen to more founder stories on Founder Reality.
George Pu
Want to follow the SimpleDirect for Work journey? We're building in public and shipping fast. Check out getsimpledirect.com.
For more founder lessons, subscribe to the Founder Reality podcast on Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube
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