Management consultants and business writers love to quote young CEOs who insist they're about to disrupt the universe.
But, for every 30 year-old billionaire, there are a million visionaries who chase barmy ideas. Worse, they chase too many.
I think they all suffer from a bad case of entrepreneurial ADD, complicated by an impulse to become the next Mark Zuckerberg.
Without doubt, success derives from a good idea. But much more than that, it demands focus.
P.T. Barnum asked business people to think big, but stick to the knitting. Barnum wrote:
"Let hope predominate, but be not too visionary. Many persons are always kept poor, because they are too visionary. Every project looks to them like certain success, and therefore they keep changing from one business to another, always in hot water, always 'under the harrow.' The plan of 'counting the chickens before they are hatched' is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age."
