Startup marketing plan requires focus as opposed to large company portfolio strategy

Large companies often have a broad portfolio of marketing activities. Startup companies on the other hand, not only DO NOT need a broad portfolio of activities initially, but can actually suffer from too many marketing activities. 1 or 2 high-performance marketing activities can form a great foundation for a smaller company and then the trick becomes finding those 1-2 activities that actually drive the business because there are infinite activities that will actually not have a noticeable effect on the business. Many marketers that come from larger organizations are accustomed to having that portfolio of activities and immediately set out to replicate that for the start-up. This can cause severe damage because not only is marketing budget being wasted but there is little chance of finding successful activities because there is no systematic process in place to find them.