When you choose a corporate career your objective is to
maximize your salary, usually you do that by working harder, longer hours and
being a steady rock-star employee. When you are an entrepreneur at a startup
you are at the top of your pyramid – even if a small pyramid – and, in theory,
you have two choices on how to grow: you can optimize your personal financial
gain or optimize your time.
If you optimize for your personal financial gain, it means
to worker harder, longer hours and own more of the responsibilities, so you
don’t have to share your profits. This is the typical scenario for
entrepreneurs like consultants, individual software developers, restaurant
owners and most small business owners. You work to maximize your salary.
By my non-scientific observations of the world, the path
above is the one most entrepreneurs take. We were trained to think the amount
of work you put into your company is directly proportional to the amount of
money you take out.
However, that seems to be the opposite of how some
entrepreneurs who I admire work. They seem to have a lot more free time than I’d
expect. They are still working long and hard, but it seems they do
disproportionally well for the amount of time they dedicate to their companies.
I believe these entrepreneurs have an enlightened view of
how life works. They understand the most valuable asset they have is their
time. They share the gain more than others would. They prefer to take less
personal financial gain (either through cash or equity), but not spend as much
time. Because at the end of the day, they know they work a little bit more and
grow the pie to everyone. If they maximize their time, there’s nowhere to go
from there. There’s no room to pursue more businesses opportunities.
Being successful in business is not about prioritizing
between spending more time in marketing, or R&D, or recruiting, or any
other business discipline. It’s about doing all those things well and at the same
time. If you are not smart about your own time, delegating responsibilities, being
productive, and finding kick ass lieutenants, you won’t be able to achieve the
maximum potential of your startup.
Here is a challenge for all entrepreneurs in 2010: Can you
do exactly the same things you did in 2009 but using just half the time?