Why Is Laser-Like Focus So Crucial and Yet So Difficult for Entrepreneurs to Maintain 

When we work with small businesses, entrepreneurs and inventors in our Consumer Product Marketing and Branding Consulting group we constantly find ourselves using and reinforcing the importance of the word “focus” to prospective clients. It is crucial to their success. It is also, often in the shortest of supply. 

By their very nature, people who create products and attempt to start businesses have some level of creativity. They envision possibilities for their ideas and endeavor to turn their vision into a commercial entity. However, this creativity often handicaps their efforts because they cannot maintain total focus and apply it to the job at hand. This manifests itself in different ways, usually by comingling work elements from multiple concepts and straying from the alpha plan that must be executed to get their initial idea to market. 

Recently we reviewed a Pet Product for dog and cat wellness. The products were well developed from a clinical standpoint. The Entrepreneur had conducted bountiful lab research. The Marketing Strategy and Business Plan were unformed but that could be easily fixed. After a thorough review process, and much debate, we passed on the opportunity to proceed and engage on this project. Why? 

Simply put, the creator of this interesting line of Pet Care Products was unable to focus on this one, high potential group of products. During the meeting, and on subsequent conference calls, he would divert his attention to human oral care products he was developing, or a horse liniment, or an arthritis spray treatment, or a cancer patch. On numerous occasions we asked him to identify the most market ready product in this vast arsenal. He would respond the “pet products” and then ramble on endlessly about other cures he envisioned.

This lack of laser-like focus is the Achilles Heel for far too many aspiring inventors and entrepreneurs. It is paramount that success be achieved on at least one project before investors, partners or licensees will want to participate in subsequent ventures. By muddying the waters with bits and pieces from multiple, diversified concepts a signal is powerfully given that the owner lacks focus, and thus discipline and commitment.

The experience I describe with the creator of the dog and cat wellness product range is not an anomaly. It is too often the norm. It is also a red flag that the presenter is not serious. A creative mind is a wonderful asset, if it can be harnessed. Projects must be prioritized and nurtured with care and full attention to every detail.

If you believe in your idea and opportunity give it a chance to be seriously and fully considered. A great concept is minimized if the owner is not equally strong in presenting themselves and their total commitment to achieving success. Do not make a hash of your introductory meeting by confusing your audience with multiple, non-connected concepts. Too often this is done as a simple act of narcissism. The breadth of your creative instincts will become apparent soon enough, if you can get past the introduction and excite interest from partners or investors.

The Cincinnati Native Who Created the Pet Food industry in the Mid-19^th Century 

Since the domestication of the dog some 10,000 years ago, man’s best friend enjoyed a very limited diet of table scraps, grains and scrounged bits and pieces scoured from fields and city streets until the mid-19^th century. The idea of a commercial Dog Food product dedicated to the culinary and dietary needs of canines was inconceivable in a world where people toiled mightily just to nourish themselves. People kept dogs for much more than companionship. They worked for their keep just as hard as any feudal serf. 

James Spratt was a lighting-rod salesman from Cincinnati. On a business trip to England in 1860 he witnessed a gaggle of street dogs wolfing down a pile of discarded biscuit hardtack that had been tossed to the dock from a British merchant ship. This inspired Mr. Spratt. He immediately went to work to create a product that would satisfy canine hunger and afford him a great business opportunity.

 James Spratt’s brainchild, The Patented Meat Fibrine Dog Cake was launched in Holborn, London. The original product was a hard biscuit cake made from a concoction of beetroot, wheat, grains, molasses and meat. Spratt was always very secretive about what type of meat he used in his Meat Fibrine Cakes. Initially the dog biscuits were sold to English gentlemen for their prized hunting dogs. The Company that Spratt formed was the first Consumer Product Brand to Market using snob appeal and Product Positioning based on the pampering aspect of the pet food was a major factor in the Brands success. 

Spratt’s Patented Limited Co. soon received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. A Patent was issued for the recipe and blending process that James Spratt perfected to manufacture the dog food biscuits. Sales boomed as aspirational dog owners wanted the best for their pets in an age when the industrial revolution was in full gear, prosperity was spreading and leisure was an exciting new lifestyle component for the middle class. James Spratt recognized these demographic changes and they whetted his Entrepreneurial instincts. 

After taking his Company public, James Spratt opened an American subsidiary based in New York City.  Distribution spread quickly across the United States. Spratt was one of the first great Consumer Product manufacturers who invested heavily in Marketing, Branding, Billboards, Packaging Graphics, Advertising and Sponsorships. 

The Company bought the front cover of the first ever journal of the American Kennel Club and actively participated in dog shows. Spratt began to target health conscious dog owners and the concept of dog life cycles was his creation. This total immersion into Marketing Pet Foods lead the Company to expand rapidly to many other Pet Care Products such as Travel Boxes, Collars, Leashes, and Kennel accessories. Booklets were given to consumers detailing how to treat common dog maladies utilizing Spratt products, medicines and Shampoos. Food products for cattle, poultry and other livestock were added. 

James Spratt died in 1880. The Company he founded, based on a simple dog biscuit, has endured. In 1950 it was bought by General Mills. 

The genius of James Spratt was not simply the creation of the first commercial Pet food. It was his vision and belief that as industrialized countries prospered, people would buy a product for their dogs that they had never needed. Today there are 77 millions licensed dogs in the United States alone. There are big box stores devoted exclusively to Marketing and Sales of Pet Products. Every Supermarket, Drug Store and Mass Merchandise retailer has a dedicated Pet Food department. 

This is the legacy of the great Entrepreneur James Spratt. He acted with creativity, purpose and determination to create a market where there was none before. His inspiration was piqued by watching street dogs devour hardtack on a Liverpool dock. This is a wonderful example for nascent Entrepreneurs to study.

Before the outbreak of World War I, Max Stern had operated a successful textile business. The ravages of war left him with no factories, no customers and no financial options for cobbling his vast pre-war operations back together. Joining thousands of others, Mr. Stern fled post-war Weimar Republic Germany in the early 1920’s. He landed in New York City, virtually penniless, but with a plan that was already operational for rebuilding his fortunes.

Stern was not about to feel sorry for his plight. He was down, but only temporarily, because he brought more to America than dreams. He also presciently brought over 2000 canaries. At the time he was considered a bit eccentric, having spent passage monies for a flock of tiny birds. No one would have predicted that this stock would become the base for building one of America’s greatest family fortunes.

Max Stern immediately began selling canaries to pet shops and eventually the giant Woolworth chain of dime stores. The birds needed to be housed so he also sold cages. They needed to be fed so he sourced and sold bird food. Over the next 30 years he built his Company, Hartz Mountain, into the dominant pet supply business in the country. By the time of his death in the 1980’s, Hartz Mountain Corporation controlled over 80% of the pet product market.

Max Stern’s son, Leonard Stern, joined the family business and has been instrumental in vastly expanding the firm’s tentacles into real estate, finance, hotels and publishing. In order to concentrate on this huge basket of assets, the Stern Family sold the pet products business in 2000.

Today, Hartz Mountain Industries (HMI), the Stern family holding company, is one of the largest privately held real estate owners in the United States. HMI has earned spectacular returns from investing and developing the swampy Meadowlands region of Northern New Jersey into huge industrial parks. The company had developed vast swaths of the Hudson River waterfront in New Jersey. Office towers in New York City, charging some of the highest commercial rents in the country, as added jewels in the HMI crown.

Leonard Stern built Stern Publishing from nothing into one of the largest publishers of weekly city magazines, owners of The Village Voice, Cleveland Free Press and Harmon Homes, real estate guides. This business was sold in 2000.

Leonard Stern is regularly listed as one of the richest men in America. He inherited great wealth from his immigrant father Max, however, his drive and ambition has greatly leveraged those resources and expanded the Stern families wealth to staggering levels. All of this has occurred because Max had the foresight to undertake the fateful move to a distant new country with a bold plan of action.

That a small inventory of itinerant German canaries could be the starting point for a world-wide business empire, still thriving after 90 years, is testimony to the genius of the American system of capitalism, and one particular immigrant’s courage and willingness to use that system to his advantage. A version of this story has been repeated endless times, with many varying degrees of success over the history of the United States. Waves of immigrants arrive here every year only seeking the “right to pursue happiness”.

Not all succeed, but all have the opportunity to pursue their particular dream. Very few people will ever enjoy the unbridled commercial success that the Stern family has experienced. However, millions and millions of immigrants arrive in this country, appreciate the opportunities it provides and avail themselves of the endless possibilities available to them by becoming immersed in America and it’s economic bounty.

Today, we are experiencing a serious economic hiccup. It will pass. We will rebound. The opportunities to be had in this country have never been greater. Immigrants, and foreigners that dream of immigrating to America, know there is no place better than this country to pursue happiness. They seem to appreciate what this country has to offer more than some of us who have been so blessed to be born here. We should never take the greatness of America for granted.