As the eventful year comes to a close, I wanted to leave this thought with you.
The strategy for growing revenues has two components.
- Exploiting current strengths and market opportunities
- Exploring new powers and creating new markets
The first one is mostly about rigorous execution, with time being the most significant constraint. It’s about the “here and now”. It is about identifying opportunities that are a mutual fit and selling “what is in the truck” to generate revenues. Put money in the bank. And meet the quarterly forecast.
Exploit, execute to survive.
The second aspect is about going beyond survival. It’s about thriving. Gazing at the horizon and looking at adjacent market opportunities without straying from the company’s vision. Grounded with an experimentation mindset, ideation and validation of ideas from potential customers would be key activities for moving to the monetization phase.
Explore to thrive and grow.
How does one balance the two?
While there are no magic measures or formulae, we can draw some inspiration from the “20% projects” of Google. Successful products like AdSense, Gmail, Google Maps, Google News, Google Talk came from “20% projects”.
80% to focus, execute and exploit the current strengths.
20% of the time, develop new strengths and explore further market opportunities. What do you think?
Make a great 2022!
