I read an article recently from a Stripe employee about “Life in Stripe” and this point hits the home run.
There is a line in Hollywood set design: “Make sure your budget gets on screen.” In startups, you want your efforts to be directly customer-visible. A well-operated early stage startup should spend basically no time on things which aren’t either product or talking to customers. Productive work is, by definition, “on screen” to users. You minimize (and regret) nuisances like incorporation, setting up payroll, and the gigantic productivity tarpit that is fundraising.
I couldn’t agree more on this notion especially for start-ups where they are trying to survive and make ends meet with shoestring resources. We need to very intentional about it. Almost all of our efforts need to be visible or impactful to our customers and the product we build. In my experience, the direct proportion of that effort is the difference between success and failure.
