My Top 10 Time Thieves

1. Fire fighting
   Fire Fighting is defined as working on effects not causes. If all you do is react, fixing stuff that’s broken because it wasn’t done right in the first place, things will never change, will they ? Yes, you must react and respond, provide workable solutions. But this isn’t the real job of a manager or a leader: the real job is to change the way things are done, change the methods and techniques, and sometimes the people, so that the old problems go away. 
2.  Fighting the wrong battlesIn all ball sports, shot selection is critical: you need to play good shots. But just as important, often much more critical early on, are the shots you choose not to make – the balls you leave alone. In business, your success will be decided just as much by the battles you decide not to fight as those you do. Let some things stew for a bit; just as not every conversation is a battle to be won, not every issue is a war to be fought. 
3. DIY instead of delegatingOk, so you can probably do most things faster, and much better, than many. But in the long run, as long as it gets done, does it really matter it took a day longer and was only 80% as effective ? Thought not. So treat this as a coaching opportunity, where you can help someone else learn. And spend your time on doing the difficult stuff that really deserves your attention.
4. Forgetting about facts
   How long is spent in meetings and conversations drifting around opinions and assumptions ? If nothing is checkable, every lame half-baked idea is valid, and the lack of clarity and inevitable frustration ratchets up the emotional temperature. Break that cycle by asking: “What don’t we know ?” A few relevant facts move issues on rapidly.  Ask: “Can we test that assumption ?” At the very least it stops the whinging and gets people moving and directed. If there are no obvious pointers as to what to do next, then create a theory, and test it. It might be completely wrong, but the really good news is that you now know what not to do: only one step nearer wisdom, but it’s a massive leap from ignorant thrashing about.
5.  Thinking that all technology is goodTechnology isn't all good. There is a horrible paradigm amongst the generation that have grown up with Windows that Everything Is Miscellaneous. “Why tidy up my Inbox when I have Search ? Let the technology remember everything for me, I can look anything up whenever I need it, can’t I ?” The consequence of this is a life lived in a continuous present (just like Twitter, in fact), where the last thing to appear is the most important. This destroys any sense of perspective and context, and means irrelevances are given undeserved airtime, and everything needs to be learned afresh every day. Such childlike innocence is seen as invigorating, when in fact it is desperately dangerous, arresting peoples’ development, blinding them to wider truths, and gives them every excuse to drop solid, properly thought-through plans on a whim.
   
   So get the Inbox cleared out every day. Clear your desk. Review your Big Rocks. Write down your do list, with the Big Rocks in BLOCK CAPITALS. Turn off Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, Outlook and your phone. Go on, get on with it.
6. Buggering about working on the Little RocksA Zen master was asked how to make big changes happen in a busy world. The master began by putting large rocks in a pot. Only three would fit. He asked his pupils if it was full, and they said ‘Yes Master’. So he took some stones, and used them to fill in the space around the rocks. Again, he said: ‘Is the pot full ?’, and the answer came back ‘Yes Master’. So he poured some gravel into the pot. By this time the students hesitated when he asked if the pot was full, but still said ‘Yes’. So the Master piled sand onto the rocks, and shook the pot till the surface was completely level. ‘Is the pot full now?’ ‘Oh yes Master’ they said, but were amazed when he poured water into the pot and it took a surprisingly long time before it started spilling over the edge. ‘Students,’ said the Master, ‘the pot is now full. But what is the moral of my story ?’ One student replied ‘No day is so busy that we cannot achieve more.’ ‘Yes,’ said the Master ‘that is true, but not my real point. The really important point is that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, they will never go in at all.’
   To achieve major change, focus uninterrupted time on the big, different things you want to happen.
7.  Letting email and the phone interrupt youYou decide what you do with your time, nobody else. Pick up email and voicemails every few hours and then turn them off again.
8. Other peopleAre you a SNIOP ? Are you Susceptible to the Negative Influence of Other People ? If so, don’t despair, we all are to some extent. But now you know the concept, it won’t happen so readily, will it? Worse than negative people, are the poisonous ones: they’re maybe not doing it consciously, but they’re doing you no good whatsoever. The malicious ones are easy to spot (and luckily there aren't that many of them anyway). The hard ones are those who are doing you no favours through their own attributes: they may be incompetent, lazy, or just incompatible. Gently cut your ties with them.
9. Feeling less than positive about a situationYour attitude is your responsibility and no-one else’s. How you feel when you walk in the door in the morning has nothing to do with your Boss or the company. “No-one has the power to change my attitude without my permission” Eleanor RooseveltIf something’s not right then stop wallowing in self pity and do something about it. And if you can’t, and you really don’t like the job then stop whinging, get off your backside and find a better one. As Ted Turner said: “Lead, follow, or just get outta the damn way”.
10. Being a Wimp“Self-pity and resentment are amongst the most toxic of drugs.” John Gardner. Be gentle with other people, but mercilessly hard on yourself. As my brother used to say: "when you look back on your business career, you could always have been much braver than you actually were." What are you waiting for ? Get on with it.

Choosing a Co-Founder

Great article on choosing a co-founder from http://venturehacks.com/...

Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. It’s more important than your product, market, and investors.

The ideal founding team is two individuals, with a history of working together, of similar age and financial standing, with mutual respect. One is good at building products and the other is good at selling them.

The power of two

Two is the right number — avoid the three-body problem. Think Jobs and Wozniak, Allen and Gates, Ellison and Lane, Hewlett and Packard, Larry and Sergei, Yang and Filo, Omidyar and Skoll.

One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg). So can three founder companies (hello, @biz, @ev, and @jack). In three founder companies, the politics can be tough — gang-up votes, jockeying for board seats, etc. — but it’s manageable. Four is an extremely unstable configuration and five is right out. When 4-5 founder companies work, it’s because two founders dominate.

Two founders works because unanimity is possible, there are no founder politics, interests can easily align, and founder stakes are high post-financing.

Someone you have history with

You wouldn’t marry someone you’d just met. Date first. Go through something difficult, like a Prisoner’s Dilemma or a Zero-Sum Game. If being ethical was lucrative, everyone would do it!

One builds, one sells

The best builders can prototype and perhaps even build the entire product, end-to-end. The best sellers can sell to customers, partners, investors, and employees. The seller doesn’t have to be a “salesman” or “business guy”. He can be technical, but he must be able to wield the tools of influence. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs aren’t salesmen, but they are sellers.

Aligned motives required

If one founder wants to build a cool product, another one wants to make money, and yet another wants to be famous, it won’t work. Pay close attention — true motivations are revealed, not declared.

Criteria: Intelligence, energy, and integrity

It’s not the kid you grew up next to. It’s not the person you like the most. It’s not the hacker most willing to work for free.  It’s someone of incredibly high intelligence, energy, and integrity. You’ll need all three yourself, and a shared history, to evaluate your co-founder.

Don’t settle

If it doesn’t feel right, keep looking. If you’re compromising, keep looking. A company’s DNA is set by the founders, and its culture is an extension of the founders’ personalities.

Pick “nice” guys

Avoid overly rational short-term thinkers. There are bounds to rationality. Partner with someone who is irrationally ethical, or a rational believer that nice guys finish first. Be especially careful with the “sales” guy here.

What you don’t know

Business founders who don’t code use bad proxies for picking technical co-founders (“10 years with Java!”). Technical founders who don’t sell also use bad proxies (“Harvard MBA!”). Learn enough of the other side to have an informed opinion. If you’re not seriously impressed, move on.

FAQs

What if the right guy already has his own startup? Convince him to work on yours part-time — he’ll drop his idea once yours gets traction.

Breakups are hard

If you’re going to fall out with your co-founder, do it early, recover the equity into the option pool to keep the company going, and recruit someone else great to fill the missing slot. Build in founder vesting (a.k.a. the “Pre-Nup”) to keep the breakup from getting messy. Building a great company without a partner is like raising kids without a…

Nearly everything I’ve written on this topic applies to dating and marriage. Coincidence?

Go forth and multiply.

Firing

Saw this on Chris Dixon's Blog...

Firing

Firing is awful. You can try to avoid it, but even the most selective founders make serious mistakes. Here are a few things I’ve observed about firing:

1) The good people bounce up, the bad ones bounce down. I was told this by my boss once when he was firing one of my friends. At the time, I thought this just made him feel better about himself. Over time, I’ve seen the wisdom in what he said. Some people who get fired react by fixing their weaknesses. Others spiral down.

2) Do it early. If you think you’re going to fire someone over the next six months, you probably will. Don’t wait too long. Too many founders do. It’s better for management and employees if it happens fast.

3) It’s awful. You’re in control of a situation that will meaningfully hurt someone. It’s an awful place to be. The fired person will go home and tell his/her family about how terrible it was. It was your fault. Perhaps your mismanagement caused it. Who knows. You’ll question it, and perhaps you are right to do so.

4) The other choice is firing everyone. You’re the founder of the company. If you run out of money, you’re forced to fire everyone. If you don’t fire the bad employees, you risk everyone else’s jobs. It’s an impossible situation.

5) The feeling is more likely to be mutual than you think. Most of the time, the person getting fired was already about to quit. The antipathy you feel is likely reciprocated. It’s surprising how often this happens and management doesn’t see it coming.

It would be great if startups were all about growth, hiring, and success. But the reality is that founding a company is a brutal job and lots of the pain gets passed down to employees. Creative destruction sounds nice in textbooks, but in the real world it means telling friends to go home, stop getting paid, and find new jobs.