Home > Leadership > Strategic Planning > Two Reasons to Attack Critical Issues First

Two Reasons to Attack Critical Issues First

By: Dave Berkus

 

5e946d5acbffa84333deca767bb5d244
There are two reasons to consider reordering your priorities to attack your most critical issues first, before the easiest ones to knock off the list.

 
First, you are fresher at the start of a day, and your best efforts should come when you are best prepared to address these issues. Remember how easy it is to put off those final decisions at the end of a tiring and long day?
 
But the real reason to do this is to allow most everything else to fall into place, once the critical issues are worked out. It’s true in every business, all the time.
 
Take for example, solving key technology problems that prevent a product from shipment, or from scaling to large production. If sudden demand for a product takes management by surprise, having solved these key issues will remove the key barrier to ramping production and taking advantage of the opportunity.
 
In a young company, the key issue is most often finding the way to start the revenue flowing from services and sales. With enough revenues, the young company can more easily raise equity funds, borrow money, hire top talent, and gain valuable publicity.
 
Next, a critical key issue is finding the way to break-even for a young business – the proxy for stability. Working on that issue alone can drain a CEO, given its many incarnations – in marketing, sales, finding efficiencies, cutting efforts that are of lesser value, and more.
 
Hire key talent to develop the product, to create a manufacturing line, establish distribution channels, to organize the sales effort, and you will find that many other less important issues resolve themselves or fall into place, much less important than before the critical issues had been resolved.
 
This article was originally published by Berkonomics
Published: December 31, 2014
1888 Views

a person

Dave Berkus

Dave Berkus is a noted speaker, author and early stage private equity investor. He is acknowledged as one of the most active angel investors in the country, having made and actively participated in over 87 technology investments during the past decade. He currently manages two angel VC funds (Berkus Technology Ventures, LLC and Kodiak Ventures, L.P.) Dave is past Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest angel networks in the United States. Dave is author of “Basic Berkonomics,” “Berkonomics,” “Advanced Berkonomics,” “Extending the Runway,” and the Small Business Success Collection. Find out more at Berkus.com or contact Dave at dberkus@berkus.com

Trending Articles

Stay up to date with