Tiger BufordYour Orthopedic Industry Expert (free today)

Focus is the best determinant for ortho startup success

29 May 2026 · 1 min

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Tiger Buford says focus is the biggest predictor of startup success. At Ellipse, the CEO kept a list of 30 potential projects but fired employees who worked on anything outside the top three, forcing the team to finish work and rotate new ideas in.

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You're, you're sort of swerving into focus. I think focus is what makes great startups. They just, and, and lack of focus is what kills companies. Yeah, you gotta, you can't be distracted by all the noise. At Ellipse, we had a, it was, you know, go back to Ellipse again. We basically had a list of 30 projects and the CEO would basically every couple weeks would say, okay, here's the top 3 projects. You have to work on these top 3 projects. If anybody's working below the line on number 3, you're fired. And it was very, it was It was really that, and you know, and it really clarified things. Yeah. And we would knock off 1, 2, or 3, and then we'd add something to the list. But that, that focus, focus is so important.