

Dos and Don’ts for Founders - ryancarson
http://ryancarson.com/post/25580650719/7-dos-and-donts-for-founders

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jiggy2011
I hear lots of advice to founders about not wasting time with email. This may
be good advice, but to be honest I'm not sure why somebody at an early stage
startup that hasn't launched a product yet would get so much email?

Sure you may be negotiating with VCs/Suppliers etc (in which case you probably
want to see those emails) but I don't get why you would have hundreds of
people spamming your inbox every day?

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technotony
We are about to launch and I already have hundreds of unread emails in my
inbox because I've been so busy coding to get to them. These can be broken
down roughly into the following categories: \- people trying to sell stuff \-
potential BD partnerships \- random contact requests coming in from our
website \- product discussions with the team \- various admin emails from our
accelerator organizers \- a few mailing list automated emails

As you can see, most of these are not important enough to have to read!!

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einhverfr
Actually I get to email first thing in the day. I prioritize the ones I want
to read and respond to or delegate. I also read email last thing in the day.

It is important to keep in good contact with everyone one wants to keep in
touch with. But one shouldn't spend too much time doing it.

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astrofinch
I just looked at this guy's startup. How the heck is it making money? Are
people really so clueless as to not know that the same information can be had
for free from dozens of websites just a Google search away?

There isn't even a free trial! How can they expect people to pay $50 up front
on the strength of their nonexistent brand name?

I am seriously confused. The only explanation I can think of is that they get
all of their traffic from this guy's blog posts, from HN hacker wannabes who
want to learn to code and didn't think to Google.

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SatvikBeri
A structured approach to learning, combined with motivation goodies (like the
badges) saves a lot of time. Saving just a couple of hours a month easily
justifies the $50 cost...and with any half-decent course you'll save a lot
more than that.

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tome
Ryan, what is it with the very precise timings? Waking at 4:54am and todos for
19 minutes.

My hypothesis is that if you aim to get up at 5am then it's easier to be lazy
and say that 5:15am is almost 5am, but if you specify 4:54am then you can't
cheat! Am I right?

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maxko87
I'd like a combination of 3 (mission statement) and 5 (TeamGantt) -- each time
you are creating a concrete goal for your todo list, think about how exactly
it will align with your mission statement and advance the company.

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ryancarson
Interesting idea - thanks.

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einhverfr
There's a lot of good stuff there. I would add one thing about accounting. If
you are a founder, you need to know it. Every case I know of where a business
went out of business due to embezzlement, the cause was a partner not keeping
an eye on the books. Know your accounting and at least once a month look at
the books. There are no excuses.

The second point is about todo lists. I have my own style here, the author has
his own style. It's a good idea to develop your own style here and run with
it. Maybe it is 19 min a day. Maybe it is 5 min a day. Maybe it is linear.
Maybe like mine it is non-linear with general priorities.

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taybin
So are those do's or don't's? Honestly, I thought it was a parody until I got
to "learn basic accounting".

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moge
Probably not the best title but I enjoyed the article. I always like hearing
what tools other founders use.

ps. all you project manager makers TODO list startups, listen up. Your app is
not a project management app until it has dependencies. If you don't have
dependenies you are just a TODO list; Basecamp, I'm looking at you ;)

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fibertbh
_Use TeamGantt to build your Road Map_

Not a fan of this. Especially when you are just starting out with an idea that
changes rapidly. A Google Doc with a few bullet points for key goals and big
deadlines is more useful.

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einhverfr
Agreed. Flexibility is important. I always say don't look at plans during
execution.

