Why prioritize? Just do it all.
The popular management mantra is to focus, focus, focus. Well I don't like that mantra. Hahahaha
My whole career I’ve been taught the mantra of focus, focus, focus.
And if I was using the old way of managing things I would agree.
But I like breaking the rules in how I manage.
So I often wonder… “What if I did the opposite?”
And that theory has worked wonders so far with how we’re growing Reviv, which by the way is closing in hard and fast on that $1m ARR mark.
Plus we’ve been profitable every month we’ve been in operations.
Why do they say to prioritise?
The common thinking is that by focusing you do the things you prioritise much better.
And if you try to do too much then everything suffers a bit and you don’t do anything right.
But this has some very key assumptions underneath the hood:
This assumes that management resources are finite
This assumes that you're making relatively ‘fixed’ investments in these projects that you take on. And so you’re taking on employees, etc.
This assumes that you cannot scale complexity as if everybody is just running their own self-contained business without much cross-dependencies.
How am I doing the opposite?
I basically do the opposite by changing all of the assumptions under the hood.
Meaning:
I don’t hire employees, I hire contractors. Most of these contractors are all paid by hour and allocate hours to the projects that they are working on.
I control what we work on by overseeing and approving every task that we take on. So this helps keeps costs in check because people cannot just start doing whatever they want.
I keep complexity in check because everything is captured as a finite task in Clickup. With a clear owner, status, due date and updates as comments. I never have to wonder what is going on because I can just go look it up quickly.
I try to keep interdependencies to a minimum and when they do exist they are minimized because everyone in the team is clearing their Clickup inbox a few times a day. So there are few bottlenecks.
And so I have setup a structure that I like to think of almost like a service-based architecture in software. Everything is done as self-contained units and it is nearly impossible for anything to be forgotten.
If something goes overdue I get a notification and I ask for an update and new due date. Simple.
Just how much are we doing?
Let me give you an idea for just how much we are doing with Reviv with me as the sole full-time person and then 15-20 freelancers:
we’re managing what is now a pretty complex e-commerce operation that has three different fulfilment providers in three different countries
we manage a community, social channels, and service desk that probably require 150-200 responses per day
we run a content machine that pumps out each week: 3-4 blog posts, 3-4 youtube videos, 8-10 shorts, etc.
we have launched or are about to launch paid ads on Meta, Google, IG, X, Pinterest, Reddit, and Tiktok
we are prepping to launch locally in Brazil, Taiwan and UK
we are launching new channels like Tiktok Shop, Tiktok affiliates, Clickbank affiliates, etc.
we are launching two ebooks and prepping the launch process
we are building two different AI tools: one customer-facing and the other for ops
we are launching a new brand, Remodel, that will operate only via our looksmaxxing influencer partners
we are launching a new product that we designed ourselves and designing a third one from scratch
And i’ve probably missed a bunch of other things.
I spent 10+ years going in circles because of my health and now i’m making up for lost time baby. Time to show who the real Ken is ;)
What is key to being able to do this?
So there are a number of key things to being able to do so many things at the same time and not have it turn into a disaster.
You need to be operate light and fast, like a SEAL team:
I have no fixed salaries to pay. We dial up or dial down our human costs directly as a function of what we achieve. Meaning I pay for zero latency.
You need people to follow the system, which in this case is the ‘Beast method’. That ensures everything stays organized as self-contained tasks no matter how many bullets are whizzing by.
You need competent people who you can trust to own projects and see them through to completion. And so I kick off as many of these ‘project owners’ as I can and keep the ones who prove themselves, while I drop the ones who do not. Which is easy to do since I’m just paying by the hour anyway.
You need to keep the politics out. We have no team meetings, no team events, and yet everyone in the team gets along and works together great. We will smoke any of these foolish companies who think ‘culture’ is about partying together.
And that’s about it. You do these things well… and you can really put the pedal to the metal on the amount of shit you’re doing.
What is the benefit of doing things this way?
There are two major benefits to working like this in my view.
First, we slow roll start on many projects. Because there is often a learning curve. And also the reality of a lot of projects is that they take some time to get up and running because of externalities.
For example you are waiting on a partner, you need a few weeks for product to be manufactured, etc.
So when you kick off a lot of things that have some dependencies… you aren’t that bothered when you hit a snag on a couple of them and they are delayed. Because you’re diversified like a mutual fund and the chances that at least one or two of them does go live is pretty good.
Second, because of this diversification I have many ways to grow each month.
If I have ten different projects that are being worked on and each one of them can potentially add 30-50% of growth to my monthly revenue than there are a lot of different ways I can grow.
And I can quickly double down on anything that seems to be working.
Closing thoughts
Almost all managers out there say to focus.
But that assumes that you do things the old school way…. with employees, fixed budgets, loose project management, etc.
I do almost nothing the old school way. Mainly i just make fun of these old school managers and watch as more and more of them put the “Open to work” badge on their Linkedin profile.
If I followed their rules, I would get their outcomes.
And their outcomes are evident by how these traditional companies are getting their asses handed to them in today’s market. And by just how many VC-backed startups are going belly up these days.
Rather I will do things my way.
And so far it seems to be working just fine.