INSTANT MBA: Focus On The Problem That Keeps Nagging At You

"When I meet with the founders of a new company, my advice is almost always, 'Do fewer things.' It's true of partnerships, marketing opportunities, anything that's taking up your time. The vast majority of things are distractions, and very few really matter to your success. Anything I've done that really worked happened because, either by sheer will or a lack of options, I was incredibly focused on one problem."

Williams uses the company he co-founded, Twitter, as an example. What initially started as a side project became its very own tweeting ecosystem when he and his team decided to focus on making Twitter into an information system instead of a social network.

"When you're obsessing about one thing, you can reach insights about how to solve hard problems. If you have too many things to think about, you'll get to the superficial solution, not the brilliant one...To me, that comes down to the gut. The things that keep nagging at you are the ones worth exploring."