Life at a startup is really a balancing act. There aren’t enough resources, yet opportunities abound. The most important and difficult responsibility I face as a CEO is determining where to allocate our time, energy and money.
Fred Wilson recently spoke about “saying no”, and I see that quite a number of other bloggers echoed what he said, such as this post by the CEO of Judy’s Book.
Understanding the value of each opportunity is crucial, as is having a very clear idea about what the end goal is. But saying No isn’t hard when you have limited resources, tight deadlines, and big milestones – the real issue is to understand what is critical to the business/service/product and saying “Yes”.
I usually compare this balancing act to a teenager who has been saving money for the last three years. He worked part time and in the summers and has finally accumulated $400 to spend on a computer. My guess is that when it comes time to buy a computer, he will have a very easy time saying no to the printers, DVD players, and wireless keyboards.
When there aren’t enough resources to spend saying no isn’t really a choice.
