> Talking to your cofounders and team - Sometimes, this looks like having coffee or grabbing a beer. Invariably, you'll be talking about work and how things are going. This is work because you need to know what's going on, and need to care about how your team is feeling and doing.
I can't stress the importance of that enough. I think one of my best decisions on GrantTree was, until recently, to have 121s with almost everyone in the company on a biweekly basis. This scaled up to about 20 people. Yes, it took a chunk of time out, but it was extremely well invested time, imho. I think it was instrumental in pushing through some very complex cultural shifts and getting to where we are now, which is that the company is basically self-managing and I no longer need to steer people in this hands on manner at all.
I strongly recommend this type of work. Someone may occasionally criticise you and say "but you're wasting a quarter of your time each week!" - you're not wasting it, you're investing it in the most valuable resource of your startup: its people.
I guess the reason many people might not do it is that it takes a certain humility to realise that your work output is actually worth less than investing that time in growing and developing the people who work in your business.
> Writing blog posts about running startups
Glad this is first. It is ironic because the founders writing the blog posts and giving advice have proved that they actually don't know what they are doing by the very act of wasting their time writing blog posts.
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I feel one of the luckiest things that happened to Thumbtack was that for the first 3 years or so the company got basically no press, raising money was difficult and we got a lot of negative feedback from a lot of people. This meant not only did we not have any opportunities for the time wasting things listed (giving advice to others, talking on panels, etc), but we didn't get any validation from anybody for pretending to be successful.
Re investor updates - a thousand times yes. A huge chunk of the companies I invested in never send updates unless I push them. YC companies are especially guilty (a few never even told me when/if they shut down.)
>>> Writing blog posts about running startups - This feels good. If it gets onto Hacker News and gets a lot of views, you'll feel really flattered and proud. But don't confuse people reading your post with people knowing and caring about your company.
Not sure I agree with this one.
I've worked at two startups and both made major inroads in industries they wanted to break into by doing this. They wrote several posts that were published in various magazines and "{trade rags" for their industry.
It gave them exposure and explained what their application did and how it could solve an industry wide problem. Doing this actually landed both companies a major corporate client.
Blogging about general stuff isn't work, and if you're trying to get it on HN or some other "technical" site that is not related to your business, then yes, not work. If, however, you get it published in an industry specific newsletter, magazine or trade paper, I would say it will worth it.
Wait a minute... This "isn't work":
> Having coffee with investors - This can be confusing, because sometimes you need to meet with investors. If you're gearing up to raise money or need specific advice, this is work. Most of the time, though, this isn't work
But this is:
> Writing updates for your investors and meeting with them one on one - I've written about investor updates. These relationships are important, and can be incredibly helpful as you grow. Maintain them.
Notice the "meeting with them one on one" in the last quote. Wouldn't having coffee with them qualify as meeting with them one on one and "maintaining" the relationship?
Here I was thinking this was going to be a blog post advocating a work-life balance...
> Things that look like work but aren't: > Writing blog posts about running startups
Anyone else see the hypocrisy here?
Talking about work != Work
Things that you might be tempted into cutting out because they don't look like work but actually are:
- Participating in your professional community. Looking at you, HN.
- Going out for drinks with friends. Actually having friends.
- Spending time with loved ones. Actually having loved ones.
- Spinning your wheels for awhile when working in your business stops feeling productive and your subconscious is prodding you to look for strategy refinements by killing your enjoyment of the work. Yes, it's work finding out what's not moving the needle, and the way you do that work is to stop doing stuff, and the way you know to stop doing it is that you don't like doing it anymore.
- Spinning your wheels doing new stuff that you're not sure whether it will ever contribute to the bottom line or not. Eventually you'll have to make a decision, but if you're not sure yet, that time isn't now. Keep doing it until you know exactly why you're stopping.