The most valuable resource at a startup is not money.

It’s time! Focus! Energy!

Founders are amazing at making shit happen, finding creative solutions, and seeing opportunities.

This also means — like all humans with big ole brains — they can get distracted.

Or also — like all humans doing hard things — they procrastinate (in ways that feel “productive”).

BEWARE, FOUNDERS!

Here are 5 things that I often see founders waste time on - don’t let this be you!

The work you are doing is too important to get sucked into this crap! 😉

1. General Networking

Going to very targeted events where your potential customers are? YES!

Going to every single networking event? Please no!

It can be fun and feel productive. And of course, “you never know who you might run into.”

But everything is a tradeoff.

Time at events is time away from product, sales, customers.

Like Mark Suster said so eloquently: Don’t Become A Conference Ho.

Here’s a dirty secret.

The people at events? They are rarely the target invite list. They are often people who sell to that target invite list (or job seekers). The most common attendees at a “founder” event are lawyers, development agencies, and, yes, investors. 😉

2. Product Perfection

I had a CEO tell me that the best code he’s ever seen was for a company that never shipped their product.

Perfect code, no feedback, zero customers.

If your product doesn’t have warts, if you’re not embarrassed by your MVP, if you don’t vomit in your mouth when you look at the UI, you’re waiting too long!

Most products are rebuilt entirely from v.1.

Either it was the right thing but not scalable.

Or the wrong thing and you iterate.

Building a product is fun!

Putting a product into the hands of customers to see their reaction is hard!

What if they think your baby is ugly?!?

Avoid the trap of building a great product in your head.

Get a mediocre product into the world and see what happens.

The only way to a great product is by starting with a not-great one!

3. Worrying About Haters

If you have haters, you know you’ve made it!

Critics, naysayers, and trolls…DO NOT EXPEND PRECIOUS EMOTIONAL ENERGY ON THEM.

And definitely don’t spend time arguing or fighting back.

You could be spending time on customers!

Also, when you give it airtime in your head or by replying, you give them power they don’t deserve.

It’s like recognizing a competitor smaller than you. Rule #1 in business PR strategy and ninja black ops mind games is always compare yourself to larger competitors but never mention smaller ones.

Of course, if you’re getting a lot of angry feedback, that may be a helpful data point. Is there anything to learn? Is there a kernel of truth to address?

This also takes the sting out because, boy, was it helpful to have a chance to self-reflect! Thank you, troll friends, for this growth opportunity!

(P.S. Angry feedback from customers is a good sign and shouldn’t be treated as haterade!)

4. Research

ChatGPT for 10 minutes. Up to an hour.

Then get started.

Take an action.

The best way to learn is to get started, put something out there, try it, run an experiment.

The sooner you get started, the sooner you can start not sucking. (Being bad at something is the first step of learning!)

If you are “doing market research” for too long, you won’t be successful. You’re using the research to procrastinate and avoid action.

You can only really truly learn by doing.

I had a million ideas of what this blog should be but I made more progress writing and publishing ONE BLOG than spending 3 months thinking about it.

If you need inspiration, I love Rachel Ledbetter’s post on walking confidently in the wrong direction. She is the founder of Motivo (featured with InpharmD in one of my favorite Healthcare Entrepreneur Meetups ever) and her Substack is fantastic.

5. Non-Revenue Generating Activities

Is this it’s own category or just a summary of everything I listed above??

Obvious-But-Important Reminder: prioritize the things that make money!

It is easier to tweak a website, reply to LinkedIn comments, or grab a cup of coffee than to do cold outreach to potential customers.

It’s more fun to brainstorm campaign ideas than launch one.

But the most fun of all (in the long run) — is to do the hard shit to build a great company!

No one is ever sorry they focused on revenue.

(Unless it makes your culture terrible, in which case, I have some suggestions for you here and here!)

Mo Bunnell and Tim Ferris both have great suggestions for daily practices to do the Most Important Thing. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can also use this priority matrix or Eisenhower’s Quadrant.

What helps you stay on track? What did you think would help your company but was a waste of time? What is your favorite cat video? (JUST KIDDING! Please don’t look up cat videos.)