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Don't. Waste. Time.

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Re: Don't. Waste. Time.

#11

Post by billpatrianakos »

Sounds like common sense but you'd be amazed by how many people don't get it! I'm working with 2 startup organizations (my own business and I'm on the board of a charity) and I've seen a ton of time wasted on meta meetings (meetings about the next meeting), and getting paperwork exactly right when it just needs to be okay, etc.

Through my experience in my business I've been able to point them in the direction this article suggests. Basically, we only spend time on things that clearly get a goal achieved. The rest we just leave until we absolutely need it. There are things that need to be finished correctly right now that don't have an obvious impact on later success but those things are far fewer than one might think.

Re: Don't. Waste. Time.

#13

Post by dvdhsu »

He mentions that one shouldn't care much about business cards: I disagree. The small details, after you ship your major product, are the most important. They're what truly delight your users after the first 'wow'.

I would suggest a startup to, yes, first focus on the product. Once the product is done though, they should focus on the small, "trivial", details.

Re: Don't. Waste. Time.

#15

Post by andrewflnr »

dvdhsu wrote: post #13

He mentions that one shouldn't care much about business cards: I disagree. The small details, after you ship your major product, are the most important. They're what truly delight your users after the first 'wow'. I would suggest a startup to, yes, first focus on the product. Once the product is done though, they should focus on the small, "trivial", details.

I think he means the entire article to apply mainly to pre-product startups. He would probably agree that after that is the time to work on business cards and stuff.

Re: Don't. Waste. Time.

#17

Post by lifeformed »

What I take from this is that time is more important than money; exchange money for time whenever possible. In many situations you have the option to exchange X dollars for Y hours of freed time - it's important to think about these situations in these terms, because it doesn't always look that way.

Re: Don't. Waste. Time.

#18

Post by earbitscom »

There is some truth to this but doing things like paperwork quickly can lead to a lot of trouble. Read Anything You Want by CD Baby founder Derek Sivers. He recommends not worrying about having Terms and Conditions on your website, and all kinds of other "formalities". Then he says breezing through some paperwork on a loan from his father accidentally cost him, I think, $2 Million. Letting his employees handle their stock option plan resulted in a profit sharing plan that gave every dollar to the employees. When he rescinded it, they hated him moving forward.

Re: Don't. Waste. Time.

#20

Post by Alex3917 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #15
dvdhsu wrote: post #13

He mentions that one shouldn't care much about business cards: I disagree. The small details, after you ship your major product, are the most important. They're what truly delight your users after the first 'wow'. I would suggest a startup to, yes, first focus on the product. Once the product is done though, they should focus on the small, "trivial", details.

I think he means the entire article to apply mainly to pre-product startups. He would probably agree that after that is the time to work on business cards and stuff.

I think this is incorrect. The business card is the first deliverable of every startup, and whether or not you have a well-designed card is one of the strongest signals that your first prospective customers will use to decide whether or not you can ship what you say you are going to. Trying to save a couple hours and a couple hundred bucks by using one of the templates at Kinkos instead of working with a designer is a huge mistake.

Clearly you are going to be meeting tons of people and telling them about your startup if you are really serious about it, so not having a well-designed business card from day one is just throwing away tens of thousands of dollars worth of leadgen.

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