You Don't Need to Fix Everything

Founders and CEOs get a lot of advice. Advice is almost always well intentioned. Some is good. Some is bad. Too much good advice might actually end up doing harm. It's easy for a VC to parachute in with an opinion on what you should fix: your product, your pricing, your marketing, your team. The list is endless. And it's impossible to address everything.

You don’t have to fix it all.

Running an early-stage company means making trade-offs. Resources are finite, and time is your scarcest resource of all. As CEO, your job is to decide what matters most and tackle that with conviction.

Make Confident Choices

The best founders don’t optimize every corner of their business. They make confident choices about what to focus on and, just as importantly, what to let go. That doesn’t mean ignoring problems. It means acknowledging that not all problems are equal, and some can wait.

You might hear, "Your sales process needs work." Maybe it does. But if your immediate priority is improving customer retention, fixing sales can come later. Choosing not to fix something right now is often the right decision.

The Customer Trap

Some of the most compelling advice comes from customers. They "need' this or that feature. A design friend of mine pointed out that those are* already* customers. What about the people who aren't yet customers? What do they need?

Product managers and people with that background will gravitate towards this kind of advice. It’s actionable, and they know how to act on it. Listen attentively to customer feedback, but if a customer requests a feature make sure that the feature actually makes sense to your goals at the time. And don't forget that, early on, features that bring in more, new customers might deserve priority depending on your goals.

Not All Advice is Equal

Not everyone understands your company’s stage, challenges, or goals. Many have the same frameworks or systems that they tell everyone to do. LinkedIn is full of these people. While there's some value to frameworks, your business is not just an Excel spreadsheet that generates money. It's a unique business.

Seek advice from people who:

• Have experience with companies at a similar stage to yours.

• Understand the nuances of your business model or market.

• Can distinguish between urgent issues and noise.

When someone tells you to "fix" something, ask yourself:

• Is this truly a priority right now?

• Does this align with my strategic goals?

• Is this person informed enough to see the bigger picture?

If the answers are no, it’s okay to let that advice go.

Legal Advice is the Hardest to Balance

Good legal advice is hard to come by. This deserves its own in-depth post, but I can't write a post on advice without at least mentioning that lawyers have some of the best and worst advice of anyone. Choosing what to ignore is a challenge–after all, this is a $700/hour expert telling you. But there's a simple tactic to deciding what's important and what isn't.

Ask your lawyers about risks. Lawyers manage risk. The good ones manage risk so well they're like a nuclear arsenal–your documents are so airtight, nobody ever tries to sue you. But there’s a balance–slower sales, lost sales, or worse. Be specific. I find myself asking my lawyer: "What specific risks are you concerned about here?" whenever we are discussing a key term. This leads to both learning on my part, and informed decisions. Sometimes I agree with my lawyer, sometimes I overrule. It depends on the risk.

Lawyers can hamstring a startup by focusing founders and operators too much on what can go wrong. But founders who ignore their lawyers can see their big M&A exit go up in smoke during diligence. It's a balance.

Feeling Heard

It's important when taking feedback or advice to stay curious, and avoid being defensive.  Many of those offering you advice are high-ego, high-achievement people who think their advice is the Best Advice Ever. Whether VCs, other founders, or your father-in-law, they want to be heard.

You don't have to defend your choices to anyone besides your board and, sometimes, cofounders. But you never know what you might learn, and you'll learn far less when arguing your case than you will by asking questions and staying curious. More importantly, that person will feel heard. If that's a potential investor, partner, hire–or even your father-in-law–that will build a better relationship over the long run than feeling like you’re “right” in the moment.

Advice From Your Team

Your team, especially at the early stages, is there to get stuff done. While strategy is absolutely critical for the success of a startup, and increased responsibility is one of the main reasons why great people choose to work at startups, once the strategy is set the work simply has to get done.

A new team member usually arrives with lots of ideas, especially if they’re senior. If things aren’t working, it’s absolutely worth following through on some of this advice. Presumably, they know a lot about your industry and specific company and this advice should be good. The faster you find out it is or isn’t, the better.

But if things are working, advice from your team becomes less productive. Almost distracting. If you're experiencing a lot of objections from your team, infighting and argument over strategy, it's good to acknowledge that and reflect. Perhaps your team knows something you don't–so always start off curious. But if and when you are confident you've chosen the right direction, it's ok to be intolerant of dissent. "Disagree and commit", Amazon's core principle, is really perfect for this. If a team member can't commit to the strategy–they don't have a place on the team.

I’ve seen high-powered executives come in and ruin things for founders more times than I can count. Things that were working well suddenly stop. Be very careful when bringing on execs, and make sure their phenomenal track record was actually their doing–and not just being in the right place at the right time. I think timing and luck explain over 50% of C.V. success. The best thing you can say about those people is they didn’t screw it up a good thing. But they could, for you, if you’re not careful.

Focus for the Win

You can’t build a successful company by trying to do everything people tell you to do. You build one by doing a few critical things exceptionally well. By making difficult choices about what's important and what isn't. Prioritize, focus, and don’t let the pressure to "fix everything" derail you from what really matters.

Sometimes, the best decision is to leave some things broken — for now

If you need advice on sales, marketing or M&A… let’s chat. I promise it’ll be the good kind of advice 🙂.