The 80/20 Truth About Business Growth

By Tom Fairhall

I run a pressure washing business. A haulage company. Pubs. An estate agency.

I've also shipped 49 software projects in 18 months.

People ask how.

The answer is boring: I ignore 80% of what everyone else does.

The Pareto Lie

You've heard of the 80/20 rule. 80% of results come from 20% of effort.

But here's what nobody tells you: most people spend 80% of their time on the wrong 20%.

They optimize their email signature instead of their sales pitch.

They build a brand before they have a customer.

They attend conferences instead of shipping products.

Here's what I actually do:

I've never written a business plan. I've built 49 products. One of those things makes money.

Every project I build gets a landing page before it gets a codebase. If nobody clicks the button, I don't build the feature.

I use AI to:

The stuff that used to require a team of 5 now requires me and Claude.

Best practices are what average companies do. If you want average results, follow them.

I got tired of explaining this to people, so I built a tool.

ParetoLens AI analyzes your business and tells you which 20% of activities are driving your results.

It's not magic. It's math. But most people are too busy optimizing the wrong things to notice.

What's the one thing you could stop doing tomorrow that would free up 80% of your time?

Now ask yourself: why are you still doing it?

"80% of advice is wrong. The trick is knowing which 80%."