

Don't Kill Your Startup With 1,000 Trivial Tasks - koichi
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/78988/Founder-Focus-Don-t-Kill-Your-Startup-With-1-000-Trivial-Tasks.aspx

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nickpp
So dude meets $100k/day entrepreneur which tells him what he does (to make
that 100k).

At which dude says: No, you're doing it wrong here is what you should do:
outsource all that menial work and do "meaningful" stuff.

Anybody ventures to guess how much the dude was making per day? That's what I
would REALLY like to know.

~~~
rokhayakebe
_Anybody ventures to guess how much the dude was making per day? That's what I
would REALLY like to know._

Minimum the low millions per year. I think I read Appsumo (the dude's
business) had 150000 members last year. They sell software or services to
businesses/geeks.

~~~
stevenkovar
AppSumo has grown a lot since. <http://www.appsumo.com/appsumo-growth-action-
video/?rf=srch>

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casca
While it seems reasonable to look at your per-hour rate when deciding whether
to do a task yourself or farm it out, it's often not. The cost of farming out
a small task is often orders of magnitude higher then completing it yourself.
Plus you know it's getting done right.

Naturally once you have recurring tasks, it makes sense to consider
outsourcing, but your average founder is earning zero so his premise is doubly
flawed.

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callmeed
I think one of the core traits of a "hacker" is that she/he will naturally
look for ways to automate/outsource tasks that are redundant, trivial or
generally unenjoyable–often even before they become a roadblock to "scaling".

But I don't think you can expect _everyone_ who runs a business to adopt this
mindset.

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jilebedev
Rather than a post showing that it makes sense to delegate verifiable & menial
tasks, I wish the author would have written "How to know you're big enough
that your time should be spent on XYZ instead ABC." That's an art and not a
science, but tips from people who make $100k/day would make a more useful
article.

~~~
fhwang
Definitely. I've been spending a decent amount of mental energy on this and
still feeling very fuzzy about it. I especially feel like bootstrapping
techies treat their time like it's worth nothing, when it clearly isn't --
they just aren't getting paid in cash for it.

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justjimmy
What if the person enjoys it the 'menial' and 'trivial' tasks? What if it's a
way for them to stay connected with what their creation? I personally
sometimes enjoy autonomous/repetitive actions once in a while just so my brain
can zone out and/or to let my mind wamder.

The title can definitely be better – something along the line of min/maxing
your time/profit, instead of 'killing' companies or 'trivial' tasks.

~~~
udp
_> What if it's a way for them to stay connected with what their creation_

Exactly. In Hackers and Painters [1] pg suggests "saving up" software bugs,
because "it's the one time that hacking is as straightforward as people think
it is". I think this transfers pretty well to things like tech support in
relation to running a startup, in that menial tasks are quickly rewarding and
keep you in the "zone".

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html>

