They’ve convinced you that entrepreneurship is all about cruising at top speed. They’ve led you to believe that you need to be constantly productive to be a real entrepreneur. They’ve made you think that the more hours you put in, the better your company will do.
They’ve trained you to think that the success of your company is measured by productivity. So, you find yourself working around the clock, day and night, on vacation, in the shower, in the bathroom, with your girlfriend, your wife, your child, your friends. Your mind is constantly racing with thoughts of entrepreneurship. It’s become the only way you know.
And since life gives back exactly what you put into it, each day brings new ideas and opportunities to stay productive and keep pushing forward without stopping.
I have had airplanes tattooed on my hands for a long time, on the right, representing the right brain, the Boeing 747, the most iconic airplane in history. On the left, and representing the left brain, the world’s largest airliner, the Airbus 380.
The Boeing 747 was the world’s largest passenger aircraft for 36 years, until the Airbus 380’s first flight in 2005. It revolutionized aviation, making air travel affordable for millions and changing how humans perceive and experience travel.
Three key decisions changed everything forever:
1. An aerodynamic design with an elevated cockpit, freeing up the front section to carry passengers or cargo without needing a complete redesign.
How many times do we redesign projects that become obsolete just because we didn’t plan them properly?
2. The use of turbofan engines, which were much more powerful and, at the same time, more fuel-efficient than previous-generation engines. This allowed the aircraft to fly farther while consuming less fuel.
How much could you save in your business if it were 100% structurally efficient? How many inefficiencies do we recognize but never take action to eliminate?
3. A digital cockpit, in models like the 747-400, which reduced the number of required cockpit crew members from three to two, lowering labor costs and improving flight automation.
How many processes in your business could be automated where human hands are currently doing the work?
The key lesson from this iconic aircraft is that productivity is essential, but without efficiency, resources are wasted and projects can easily fail.
HOW TO APPLY EFFICIENCY TO YOUR BUSINESS
We each make around 35,000 decisions a day; you, me, your friends, your partners, every single one of us. That’s roughly 1,500 choices every hour, shaping the course of our lives without us even realizing it.
I have been an entrepreneur for 23 years. I believe I have faced almost every challenge an entrepreneur can experience, from multi-million-dollar fines, which I still deal with today, to legal processes that could have led to jail time.
Looking back, only a handful of decisions have truly changed the game and led us to success. Pareto’s Law proves that 20% of decisions generate 80% of results.
HOW TO MAKE TRULY EFFICIENT DECISIONS
I will share just one decision as an example, one that changed everything. It came after launching a technology platform similar to YouTube in Spanish. We analyzed our data, took the time to think about the most accurate and efficient decision at that moment in time, based on the information we had.
We decided to manually translate millions of videos with native translators into seven languages.
On one of our high-traffic sites, we noticed that users were searching in their native languages, but all the content in that niche was only available in English. So, we made the decision to manually translate millions of videos (back when AI wasn’t an option) into seven languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and German.
This decision led us, just two years later, to become the global leader in that content niche, attracting 24 million visitors per day and earning a spot on the Financial Times’ list of the 1,000 fastest-growing companies in Europe in 2018.
But that’s not all. It also gave our business the capital it needed to thrive, enabling us to sustain a platform that still receives six million daily visits and fund the project of our lives, SIROKO. After eight years and more than 40 million euros in revenue last year, SIROKO stands strong with no investors and no external stakeholders. We, the team, make every decision ourselves.
A single decision can unlock an invaluable, unimaginable future as an entrepreneur.
But to make those game-changing decisions, the ones that shift everything, you need a clear, up-to-date snapshot of your business every single day, week, and month.
Measurement, analysis, and interpretation of your business results are the holy grail. They are the key that opens and closes everything.
It’s the gateway to making decisions driven by efficiency, not just productivity.
It ensures your company carries the DNA of the Boeing 747.
The first step every entrepreneur should take is to wake up each morning, look at a dashboard, and see data so simple that even a six-year-old could instantly understand what’s happening in the business.