“Don’t boil the ocean!” Is it for you?

“Don’t boil the ocean!” You might have heard this warning-like phrase.

It originates from the literal concept of boiling the ocean, an impossible task. The phrase serves as an advice to not make a task difficult by doing it too thoroughly.

Over time, this advice has become very popular in industry. In consulting, the phrase is something of a blanket–rule that suggests prioritising rather than analysing all the data at hand to arrive at an answer.

Sounds logical, right?

But is this advice equally applicable to ALL?

This advice applies well to large corporations that have such humongous amounts of data, that it is practically impossible to analyse everything. Analysing all the available data to them is akin to “boiling the ocean.” It is time-consuming, costly, and impractical.

So, it totally makes sense for large businesses to “Don’t boil the ocean.”

But, for startups and small & medium businesses (SMBs), it doesn’t make any sense!

For instance, if a small startup is assessing their product market fit (PMF), they must extract every ounce of insight from the little data they have to correctly validate their hypotheses. For them, the data is yet to assume the size of an ‘ocean.’ So, it is perfectly fine for them to try to analyse everything – quantitatively, qualitatively, and contextually – to make the right decisions. Ignoring any data point at initial stages could be the difference between eliminating and selecting their right target customers (or death and growth).

Likewise, for SMBs with small databases, it seems sensible to not follow “Don’t boil the ocean.”

We have experienced this first-hand in our studies for mid-sized clients. Quite often, some nondescript looking data point turns out to be invaluable.

Also, being manically thorough or proverbially speaking boiling the ocean has its own advantages.

Examples galore from every conceivable field, of people becoming exceptionally successful because of being painstakingly thorough.

In fact, it is the only way to be sure of achieving success at anything.

Is it for you?

Then why do many (small) businesses take “Don’t boil the ocean!” as gospel truth?

They do so for three reasons:

1. Propensity to imitate larger successful businesses. When smaller businesses imitate their larger competitors, they are unwittingly doing a favour to their larger competitors. By doing “Don’t boil the ocean,” they are likely to miss on good insights, make wrong decisions, become less competitive, and as a result, miss on becoming a real threat to their competitors.

2. Lack of intent, energy, time, and resources to put in the grunt-work. Let us accept the fact. If you want to be extremely thorough at what you do, you must be prepared to spend disproportionately more time – your time – doing the task. And guess what – it is back-breaking work. Not everybody is willing (or has the energy, time, and resources) to put in the grunt-work. For them, advice like “Don’t boil the ocean” gives a smart-sounding escape. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know.

3. Misplaced priorities. Being thorough correlates with being effective. “Don’t boil the ocean” correlates with being efficient. Your first priority as an SMB is to be more effective in addressing your customers’ needs. In today’s information age, deep understanding about your customers and business makes you more effective. If you misplace this priority at the onset, you might end up being efficient in doing the wrong things.

So, Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners, don’t fall in the trap of management consulting jargon. Reset your thinking!

As the famous saying (in Hindi) goes, “Dikhave pe na jao, apni akal lagaao (rough translation: don’t blindly follow Norself, think for yourself!)”

You are yet to realise your professional and personal goals, So go ahead, and boil the ocean.

If not boil, churn it, get real gems out of it, and enjoy growth!

And large corps: imagine what YOU can achieve if you stop following “Don’t boil the ocean.”

#Reset #ReThink

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