Paulina Tenner – Stay Focused on Your Core Business

<p><strong>BIO:</strong> Paulina Tenner is an entrepreneur, angel investor, TEDx speaker, and author. Her company, GrantTree, specializes in research and development tax credits and grants. She is passionate about burlesque and used to perform as a showgirl!</p><p><strong>STORY:</strong> Paulina’s company ventured into a new business area of renting out office space, a venture that almost killed the company.</p><p><strong>LEARNING:</strong> Focus on your core business. Check-in whenever you delegate a project and ensure you put controls in place. Do not fall prey to overconfidence bias.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="ql-align-center"><strong>“Focus on what you are good at instead of trying to break into new territories.”</strong></p><p class="ql-align-center">Paulina Tenner</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Worst investment ever</strong></h2><p>About five years ago, Paulina’s company reached a point where the team was too big for their current office, so they needed a new one. They had the option to get an office that was a perfect fit for them, slightly bigger than the current one, so that they could grow into it. But there was also this genius idea of taking over an entire building, renovate it, and sublet to other companies with a similar culture to theirs.</p><h3><strong>Taking a vote</strong></h3><p>Paulina’s instinct told her to go with the smaller option instead of an entire building. But when the two options were put into a vote, there were two or three votes more for the building. So they decided to go with the idea of an entire building.</p><p>One colleague in Paulina’s company had big ambitions and a clear vision of what he wanted that building to be. So he found one. The company took over the building and paid a hefty deposit of about £300,000 or so. Then they started renovating it.</p><h3><strong>The costly mistake of delegation</strong></h3><p>Paulina and her co-founder decided to put the colleague with the big vision in charge of the entire project. They were not paying too much attention to the management of