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The "No BS" version of how startups are really built, taught by actual startup Founders who have lived through all of it. Hosts Wil Schroter and Ryan Rutan talk candidly about the intense struggles Founders face both personally and professionally as they try to turn their idea into something that will change the world.
Welcome back to their episode
of the Startup Therapy Podcast.
This is Ryan Rutan,
joined as always by my
friend, the founder,
and CEO of startups.com.
Will, Schroeder, will, of
all the things founders tell
us they wish they had more
money, would probably be at
the top of the list, but is
a very, very close second.
More time is one of those
things that everybody
seems to yearn for.
I wanna open this a little
story, a little fun.
You sort of test
floated this episode.
By making a little, a little
Reddit post and you've raised
some hackles on Reddit,
which like, to be fair
isn't, isn't hard to do.
But even on Reddit, I feel like
this, this was pretty extreme.
Can you walk us through
what your little stop
wasting your time, you have
more time than you think.
Uh, post did on Reddit, I, the,
the title of I Post, which to be
fair was intentionally
like incendiary.
My wife said the other day,
she, because I, I pushed
this post and the title was
something to the effect, why
I give my team as few hours as
possible to get things done.
Yes.
Now.
And my wife was like,
you knew what you were
signing up for, right?
Yeah, you did.
Like, you could have been
surprised by the answer.
So I posted it in the startup
subreddit and basically what
I explained this said the,
the genesis of this episode.
So I think, you know,
folks are gonna appreciate
what this response.
Here's what I actually said.
I said I, I, I went through an
experiment to find out what's
the least amount of time we need
to get something done, and then
just started optimizing around
getting things done faster
with a compressed timeline.
And in that post.
The post was about
compressing time and getting
more time outta your day.
But in that post, I made one
line that said, engineering
is notorious for this problem.
Meaning, you know,
things expanding.
Yeah.
But I said, but they certainly
don't have a monopoly on it.
In that line alone is
somehow what everybody just
instantly jumped on and they
were like, can't rally cry.
You know nothing about
software engineering.
You can't compress
timelines like that.
You're gonna create
technical data.
I mean, when.
Bat shit crazy on me.
Tell me, tell me
you don't know how to
code without telling me
you don't know how to
write software, whatever.
Chris cu right?
That line was, yeah.
Yeah.
And I was just like, what the
hell are you talking about?
Nothing to do with what
I was talking about.
So you're ranting
about something that
I didn't raise right.
I made like
you're, you're shouting off
into the void at this point.
I made the second mistake
that you never do in
Reddit, which is fight back.
You fought back and I'm not
like a fight back kind of guy.
I don't have a dog.
I don't really care.
The
only way to survive on Reddit
is if you make a mistake, you
have to immediately possum,
you just have to like roll
over, belly up and just like.
Try to breathe as
shallowly as possible.
It's the only way
to come out alive.
And so people started making
just these lame comments, right?
Which, which everybody does
on Reddit, like, whatever.
And I made the mistake
of, of saying this
comment has no value.
Write something that's
productive, right?
Because everyone, like, they
believe that the coolest
thing to do is make a snarky,
really zero value comment.
Yeah.
And, and that was like, tell
me you don't know software
engineering, but without
telling me you don't, you don't
know software engineering.
I wrote back that
comment has no value.
And people went nuts now.
Nuts.
Yeah.
Well, because, because
for a lot of redditors,
your comment has no value.
Equals you have no value.
You have no value.
Right, right.
But oh my God, I just, yeah,
I, you didn't, didn't like
a worthless human being.
So to be fair, whenever
we post on Reddit and I,
I post occasionally just
from different thoughts.
Some, they either.
Amazingly well, uh, I think
I have like one of the top
five posts on Reddit of
all time, or like this one
where I just got down voted.
But it's all fire and
ice on, on Reddit.
There's nothing in between.
So the point is this was a topic
that was awfully contentious.
Yeah.
For an awful lot of people.
For entirely the wrong reasons.
It was so misunderstood and
what I was trying to say, what
I did say, I wasn't trying to
say this is what I did say.
What I did say was this.
Founders you have all the
time in the world that
you need, you're just
not using it properly.
And and that's true.
And I pointed to myself as the
prime candidate of that issue.
And to be useful, I actually
talked about what I did to
solve it, which is what we're
gonna talk through today.
And all people read was, that's
not good enough for Reddit.
Powell Yeah.
In engineers are bad.
Right?
And so anyway, let's
talk about that.
Let's, let's talk about
kind of what we're gonna
try to, to discover here.
The idea is we all have the
same amount of hours in the day.
We're all complaining
that we don't have enough
time, especially for like
solo founders, et cetera.
Like I have so many things
to do and I don't have
the time, and my answer
is always, are you sure?
Yeah, of course.
I'm sure, you know, things
aren't getting done.
I'm no, I'm not saying that.
I, I get the, that
they're not getting done.
Are you sure that
your time is fully.
Optimized, and if
so, how do you know?
I'll initially get a lot
of pushback, but I'll
say, look, this is how
I know I went through.
This is years ago, Ryan,
you and I have talked about
this before, years ago.
I went through and I did
a very comprehensive, but
not hard to do synopsis.
I just did a time log of my
time in 15 minute increments
for two weeks straight.
I just kept an Excel doc at the
time and just you'd write, wrote
everything I did in 15 minutes.
That part wasn't hard.
It was when I went
back and analyzed it.
I was like, wow, do I
waste a lot of time?
Yeah.
Why was I doing that?
Why was, was that,
and this isn't me
working nonstop, right?
Like this is me at my
peak of work, right?
Yeah.
So this isn't me being like
lazy and I'm screwing around on
social media time and anything
social media, uh, existed yet
I'm doing nothing but work.
But when I unpacked exactly
how much work I was getting
done, it was hilariously small.
Relative to the amount of
hours I was putting in.
Yeah.
And Ryan, I I think you've gone
through this exercise too.
We did.
We did.
We charted this
at the same time.
And, and I remember there
were some other super
interesting findings.
I don't wanna dig into those
today, but around, because
this is more about like the
true optimization within that
time, um, as opposed to just
like the elimination, but
where we figured out things
like there are different parts
of the day where we're better
at specific types of work.
Like there's golden hours of
creativity and that there were
different times of the day
for, for the, the two of us.
It's, it's such an amazing
exercise and one that we, we
put our teams through on, on
a fairly regular basis, but
yeah, the reality is, man,
we don't need more hours.
Right?
We don't need a
bigger bucket of time.
We need to plug some of the
leaks in that bucket, right?
Because there is no
more time, right?
We all get the same 24 hours.
Figuring out where you're
throwing it to the wind is,
is the core exercise here.
But let's stick with that
for a second because I,
I want to unpack what
was happening to my time.
You're seeing the
leaky bucket, right?
It was in places you
wouldn't think about.
Now this is back right
before I had kids.
Right, and so I had unlimited
time as far as being,
you know, unencumbered
to family, so to speak.
Right.
Yep.
That changed dramatically,
and we'll talk about that.
Your time was fully, fully
in your hands at your
discretion on how to spend it.
Right.
This was my schedule,
and I'm using this just
so you can understand.
The benchmark I was
working against my
schedule was I go to work.
Every day while it's still
dark outside, which is ironic
because I still do that
now just differently, while
it's still dark outside.
Uh, and I come home
usually around midnight
ish every day of the week.
And on weekends, more
or less the same, some
version of the same.
And I was perfectly
fine with that.
I had no complaints about it.
For what?
Now that I'm looking back, that
would've been 18 years straight.
Okay.
So if you think about the sheer
number of allocated hours I had
to work, it was all of them.
So my, my point there is
I looked at that going, I
couldn't possibly have more
output because I couldn't
possibly have more input.
That was the mistake I made.
I actually thought that working
all of those hours was what
was getting me those, those
results and those outcomes.
I was pretty happy
with the outcomes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What I didn't understand,
what I would come to learn
was that was a massive.
Amount of wasted effort.
Yeah, it's, it's kinda like
thinking about like driving
somewhere in a V eight
versus driving somewhere
on a two stroke engine.
Right.
You can get to the same place on
a lot less fuel if you optimize.
Right?
So let's talk about what
happens when I look at these
time sheets, so to speak,
and, and I unpack this, right?
What I found was that a lot
of the things I was doing, the
amount of time things took,
everything from meetings to
projects, you name it had a
lot to do with how I allocated
too much time to them.
That was the first cardinal
sin that I, I did not get.
Do you remember when
meetings always used to be
an hour, like no matter what
the topic was, because that's
the size of the block on the
calendar, Uhhuh, like, of
course that's gonna be right.
It's too hard to drag it to
hit just that 15 minute block.
I haven't attended an hour
long meeting in a
decade, maybe longer.
Uh, just to give you a sense,
more like, I'm not sure
I attend an hour
worth of meetings.
Uh, in a, in a
week at this point.
Not if I can help it.
Right.
Meetings are what happens
when work isn't exactly.
Meetings were number
one biggest thing.
And back in the day, I mean,
I'm saying back in the day
for us, 'cause we've kind
of moved past this, but back
in the day, meetings were a
big part of your day, right?
Yeah.
It was like, I'm in meetings,
I, you know, business meetings,
meetings, business, right?
And so I looked at that.
And then I started to think,
this is so silly, looking
back at this, I was like,
how is it that everyone else
seemed to agree that every
problem required an hour Yeah.
To solve?
And do you remember
how well that is?
The
standard problem solving
timeframe will right?
Correct.
That it's correct.
Scientifically proven.
And do you remember how it
used to be bad etiquette?
If, if the meeting ended
earlier or if you left the
meeting early, it was like,
whoa, whoa on, we still
have eight minutes to go.
Right.
Yeah.
So meeting bloat was
definitely way up there.
Okay.
The second big category for
me was bullshit conversations.
Now this one gets
a lot of pushback.
Yeah.
Bullshit conversations is what
happens on Slack all day now.
Okay.
Like in other words, the water
coolers just moved to Slack,
but bullshit conversations
are just, I'm talking about
stuff and there's nothing
wrong with talking about stuff.
We're not robots, but it's
not getting anything done.
Like we're chatting, we're
yucking up, but like we also
aren't getting anything done.
So no matter how long we do
this, our work is just going
to keep not getting done.
That doesn't mean stop doing it.
It means understand the cost.
You know what I mean?
Man, I remember this one
so clearly when we moved
to that, the open office
framework, when we, we tore
down the glass offices.
Yeah.
And like we just had
a big open floor.
I didn't realize what
happened at that point.
I, I felt it after I felt it
when we started doing more
remote, and then when I went
fully remote and, and here's
what happened as an empath.
Introvert who, extroverts
when he has to.
I didn't even have to
be pulled into bullshit
conversations, will I just
overhear them and all of a
sudden they're internalized
and they become my problems.
I'm now spending time worrying
about thinking about all
these other people's problems.
So the emotional drain that
that had on me was insane.
And it killed time.
Right.
I didn't have to be
hearing that, but I was.
And I can't ignore it
because that's who I am.
Yep.
And so like I realized that.
After we moved to, well, when
I moved fully remote, when
when we moved from Columbus
to Florida, I felt it.
All of a sudden I was like,
what is going on here?
Where is this extra time
and energy coming from?
And I was like.
It's all that time energy
that was getting eaten
up just through osmosis.
Like I didn't even have to
actually be in the conversation.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
It's slack all day long.
The problem with Slack is
that you lose your hours
by the second, right?
Yes.
You lose your hours.
Every one of those extra
chats, every one of those extra
threads, every whatever, just
by a thousand cuts,
you don't feel it.
You don't even, that's
what I'm saying.
It's the boiled frog thing.
Right.
Let me give you a
perfect example of
where it used to happen.
Now again, just
move to, to slack.
It used to happen in email
the the dreaded email chain.
Oh man.
So, uh, problem comes up
again, I'm going back 15 years
or whenever I did this, this
thing, but, but I found it in
my email chains, in my thread.
So problem comes up, somebody
posts to five people, you
know, they're doing what
they're supposed to do.
They're not doing anything
wrong, but they post to, you
know, five people in the chain.
Now you've just interrupted
five different people.
But that's a, that's a
whole other thing right
now within that chain.
People are going back and, and
there's some sequence to it.
Again, it just happens in
a, in a slack jack now.
But this wild thing happened.
I went on a vacation.
Um, it was actually during
my, um, uh, my honeymoon
and I didn't respond to
emails, which was like a
very unusual thing for me.
So I just didn't have another
way to like test this theory.
And I remember coming
back and catching up on
my emails, which, like a,
a rational person, that's
what, that's what they do.
There's nothing worse
than reading a now
gone cold email thread.
That's exactly it, man.
That's it.
It's one of Dante's
circles of hell, for sure.
Dude, I
remember talking to to Sarah,
my wife, and I was like, babe,
there's like 14 things that
happened just yesterday that I
would've spent the entire day
getting wrapped in that clearly
I wasn't even needed for.
Okay, this goes back to,
you know, what is Slack now?
Slack's even worse
because the cost to
engaging people is so low.
The frequency goes
up dramatically.
But if you could audit that,
if you could audit that time
spent in say, how many of
those chats, engagements,
whatever, required all of us
and required my input, it's
typically a very small amount.
Yeah.
Now we're pointing out
all of these things.
Not to say that they're bad.
It's not where our time goes.
Right.
If you were to rank every
activity that you had during
the day and say which ones
had the most direct impact on
getting shit done, I think you
would be shocked and terrified
at how few things you did.
Not you just, you being
all of us that you did you
yesterday that actually
drove the meter and how much
absolute bullshit, uh, you did.
Now imagine we've got an
organization that doesn't try
to stamp out any of this, right?
Like no one's like, Hey,
this meeting only needs
to be four minutes.
Like, like, here's a
good example, Ryan.
In our leadership meetings now
when we get together before
the meeting in our leadership
chat, you've got a Slack
chat for, for leadership.
I always say, Hey, we
actually don't need to
have the meeting this week.
Back in the day, if you didn't
have the leadership meeting,
like what does it mean?
Like, does this mean
everything's falling apart?
And I was like, 'cause
we're all up to speed.
Like, we just literally
don't need this meeting.
We all know what we're doing.
We all know what the other
is doing, and we all know
where we intersect and
let's just go and do that.
Let's get to the intersection
rather than talk about
getting to the intersection
and we'll say, does anybody have
something they need to cover?
And of course they have the
space too that, that they,
they wanna do in the meeting.
In almost every case, it's
no think of, we just saved.
Everybody's time.
Everybody's time.
That's in that, uh, meeting.
Right.
And I don't think people
have that sense of how
costly time management is.
It's a bit like saving money.
Right.
It compounds big time.
Right.
It compounds big time.
The goal isn't to create
more time, it's, it's to stop
wasting it in in the same way.
Yeah.
Like when we stop wasting time.
We started saving that time.
We can compound that into so
many other things and think
about the fact, like we're
talking about the founders
right now, but it permeates
the entire organization.
People suck at time management.
The problem is they
don't believe it.
Believe they do.
Well, it's, it's the first
thing I'd say, like every
founder, mismanages, well,
before they're even given
the opportunity to mismanage
money or team or anything
else, they mismanaged time.
Right?
It is and, and then it
becomes pervasive in the
organization because it just.
How it goes.
Right.
I mean, I, you know,
it's funny though.
I was thinking about that.
One of the reasons for the
hour long meetings in the
beginning, I think for me was
it was like, it was so lonely.
Before there was any team
that, once there was team,
I just wanted excuses
to hang out with people.
Did a group hug.
Yeah.
And so meetings were
the way to do that.
It was just an excuse to, to
just to have people around.
Just like my little
comfort blanket.
This interesting thing happens
around the time that I'm,
I'm doing this experiment.
My daughter arrives next year.
The miracle of birth
that isn't interesting.
A miracle of birthday.
Yeah, it is interesting.
And uh, so my father, for
the first time, you and I had
kids around the same time.
One day I'm at work, this is
right after summer, my daughter
was born and my wife calls
me and she's like, Hey, what
time are you coming home?
And I was like, what
are you talking about?
Right?
It is only six o'clock.
She's like, yeah, we're
gonna have dinner.
And I was like, like, this
is first dinner, right?
Six o'clock is
first dinner, is there,
is there a new three
or four hour daylight
savings time?
I didn't know about what
talking about, and again,
is, I say this with Jess now
because it's, it's goofy.
Back then, it wasn't like, it
didn't even occur to me and,
and I know when people like,
I'm such a time machine, right?
When people hear about
this stuff now, they're
like, what a psychopath.
Yeah.
You gotta
understand it
wasn't that
unusual.
It wasn't.
No, that's the thing, like we,
it sounds unreasonable now.
It wasn't necessarily
unreasonable then, but you also
have to remember that founders
are not the most reasonable.
People.
Yeah.
Correct.
Right, right.
It's all I had done so far.
All I had compounded, that
wasn't that far outta line.
It wasn't like if you had
told me that, like if you'd
said, Sarah just called
and said, uh, when are you
gonna be home for dinner?
I'd be like, already like,
what?
Why?
I remember every night I
used to have Jimmy John's
deliver my, my second dinner
at 9:00 PM to the office.
And I remember, uh,
ironically his name was
Will, who was our deliverer.
I mean, I, he was there
every day, so I got to know
him and we ended up hiring
him in, in customer support
and he ended up becoming the
head of customer support.
He's awesome.
Anyway, my point is, uh,
wife calls me up, what time
you come home for dinner.
And I thought it was like
a trick question now it
was like midnight, I guess.
And she's like, no, we're
gonna start having, uh,
family dinner at six o'clock.
And I'm like, damn.
Now first off, let's rewind
back and say, will, how did
it not occur to you that you
were gonna have to come home
to your family for dinner?
It did not occur to me.
Okay.
And in that moment
I was like, damn.
I already scheduled a
standup with her this week.
Yeah, exactly.
I was like, I was
like, I'm about to lose
six hours of my day.
Right.
Yeah.
But this was so important.
This was such a, a critical
moment that just, you know,
forced what we call in our
family a happy accident.
Like, you know, when,
when something happens
and we're like, oh, you
know, worked out great.
It was a happy accident.
Here's what happened.
The next day, I,
I came into work.
I was like, shit, I've gotta
get everything I need to
get done by six o'clock.
That's impossible.
And
it turns out it is not.
The miracle of birth was
followed by another miracle.
The miracle of time compression.
The miracle of time compression,
the power of constraints.
We always talk about how
long things take to get
done, and my answer is
always by what measure.
Right.
And so a lot of people will
say, well, I think it'll take
five hours to get this done.
I was like, if you had 50
hours, could you get it done?
Like yeah, of course.
Obviously I can get
it done in five.
If you had two, could
you get it done?
Ah, I couldn't possibly
get it done in two.
Have you tried And
that's, that's where
this started to come in.
I started to become
obsessed with the idea
of time compression.
Yep.
How quickly can I
get something done?
Now the cynics here are
instantly gonna say, we're just
gonna burn yourself out 'cause
you're gonna be trying to get
everything done so quickly.
That's, that's where you were.
Wrong.
Cynic person, Allah, Reddit.
Um, I wanna get something
done faster and more
efficiently so I have more
time, so I have more time.
And so I started to apply
these constraints on
everything that I was doing.
I always say, I've gotta
write a newsletter article.
I normally give myself
all day to do it.
I need give myself two hours.
And this magical thing
happens when you start
to apply constraints.
It just takes two hours
to get something done.
Yeah.
When
the clock shrinks, focus
sharpens, like, we see this
in a lot of other places, like
think about how much happens
in like the last 30 seconds
of a close basketball game.
All the timeouts, all the play
calling, all this stuff, because
we have to create, we have to
create something in a really,
we had all that other time.
Yep.
And we played the up until now,
but it's gonna be decided based
on this intense and tiny amount
of, of time that we have left.
What happens?
An intense amount
of focus comes.
Yep.
Because that's all we have
left and we know that's
all we have left when we
don't have that constraint.
If basketball games just kept
going until one of the teams
gave up, they'd be a hell of a
lot longer, but we'd still just
have one winner and one loser.
Yeah, yeah, right.
No outcome change.
Yep.
But a lot more time spent.
And so I started to realize
in all the things that we
are doing, you know, my own
work and the company's work,
whatever, the more time we
gave ourselves, the more of
a disadvantage we created.
I had come to believe that
I had the entire day, I
had 6:00 AM to midnight
every day to get work done.
So not surprisingly, all
my work took exactly that.
But all of a sudden I cut
that down into I had to
be done by 6:00 PM Yeah.
And all of a sudden it forced me
to say no to a bunch of stuff.
Yes.
Which having extra time
didn't do it forced me
to say, no, I can't spend
longer in that meeting.
No, I, I can't get
involved in this.
Whatever this thread
is, I, whatever.
And again, nowadays, like a
lot of the time gets eaten up
on social media and there's
so many distractions now.
Yeah, yeah.
In order to, you know,
to rupture your focus.
And I started to realize that
that my focus, my ability to
maintain that focus was my job.
And when I made the priority
right, it changed everything.
Everything.
You know something that's
really funny about everything
we talk about here is
that none of it is new.
Everything you're dealing
with right now has been done a
thousand times before you, which
means the answer already exists.
You may just not know
it, but that's okay.
That's kind of what
we're here to do.
We talk about this stuff on
the show, but we actually
solve these problems all
dayLong@groups.startups.com.
So if.
Any of this sounds familiar.
Stop guessing about what to do.
Let us just give you the answers
to the test and be done with it.
That prioritization
is so important, man.
I, and that's, I think
for me, you know,
deadlines aren't scary.
They're They're liberating.
Yeah.
Because it forces you to
prioritize what actually.
Matters.
And I think the more diligent
you become about this,
the better you get at it,
the more clarity you get
around, like what actually
does move the needle here?
To your point earlier around,
like if you really do look at
your time and like add up the
time spent on Slack answering
questions that probably didn't
really need to be answered.
We talked about this once
before as part of this exercise.
In fact, um, we may have talked
about on the pod or not, I
don't remember, but I remember
just not answering emails.
Yeah, I just stopped
answering certain emails
and you know what happened?
If it was really important
and my input was really
needed, they'd email again,
and then I would answer.
Now, some people might go like,
well, that's, that's really
rude, or That's a waste of the
other person's time to make
them ask twice you wanna know.
The funny part about that
is about 10% of the time,
they ask twice every time.
Right?
Meaning, I would've wasted
all that other time.
And like, look, if you're
the founder or you're the
manager, you're whoever,
like your time is by nature.
More valuable because you have
to spread and create impact
across the entire organization.
You bet.
And so if you're spending
your time answering what
turned out to be 90%, just
waste, not a great trade off.
So I was always willing to say
like, look, yeah, that might be
a pain for that person to have
to ask me twice, but that's
better than me answering.
90 out of a hundred emails
that didn't need my response.
I think there's
another point here too.
What I got really good
at, really, really good at
was taking big things and
making them, uh, tiny bits.
So kind of, you know, the,
the, the concept of, of
how do you move a mountain,
one pebble at a time.
I became a ninja at taking
really big things that
I needed to get done.
Like, for example, if I
needed to write a book, I'm
like, I can write any book.
You name it.
Write one paragraph at a time.
And when, when I say that
people like, oh, that's trite.
You still have to
write the whole book.
No, you don't.
All you have to do is
write one paragraph today.
That's it.
Your entire job
is one paragraph.
That's all you have to do.
You keep doing that on a, a
daily basis, and that's, you
know what we've done so well at
this company and that shit adds
up.
It does.
That's that compounding effect
I was talking about, right?
Yeah, man.
You just keep doing, you keep
consistently being milant
about your time, the amount
that is saved and the amount
of stuff that gets done.
Really, really stacks up.
And so, you know, Ryan, you, you
and I have talked about where,
you know, I'm in the process
of building a house right now.
Yes, ma'am.
And I built every cabinet,
every closet, every vanity,
a lot of the furniture.
Staircases like
everything inside this
house in my free time.
And it's not a small house.
Right?
And I say that to say
people like, where
do you find the time?
I'm like, I've
always had the time.
The, the problem
wasn't finding it.
The, the problem was
it was taking away my,
um, my distractions.
But here's how I do it.
At four in the morning, I
wouldn't recommend this to
anybody, but at four in the
morning I go into my workshop
and every single day for
just a few hours a day, I
get one thing done right.
It, it could be the equivalent
of like, it complete.
Dude, but it compounds.
Yeah.
You know, let's say I'm
building a kitchen cabin.
I'm just using that as
an example of output.
I don't say I have to
build the whole kitchen.
Nope.
I say on Tuesday morning,
I have to get up, I have to
go into my workshop and I
have to just build what we
call the carcass, just like
the, uh, the outer part.
Yep.
To the thing.
That's all I have to do.
That's it.
And I have to be laser
focused on just that piece.
Like it has to be, it gets done.
Everything has to be done.
I don't think about.
The fact that I'd have to
do a hundred more, or how
about like when you came
over and we were building,
uh, drawers together, right?
72 drawers later.
72 drawers, right?
Like 72 drawers.
And these are massive drawers.
Somebody's like four feet wide.
72 drawers is a bananas.
Number of drawers to build.
But what I did is
I'd go in each day.
I say, okay, all I'm gonna do
is I'm just gonna put what,
what we call a, a DTO in, in one
of the, the, the drawer side.
That's it.
That's all I'm gonna do.
I'm just gonna do like a
hundred of 'em today, right?
In my few hours.
And tomorrow I'm
gonna do another.
Tomorrow I another,
and I use this just so
people can visualize
like this unit of work.
And guess what, you stack
that every day consistently.
Dude, there's an
entire house build out.
Yeah, like exactly like that.
Not because I took two
years off to build a house.
'cause I dedicated a few
hours every day with insane
focus on a micro task.
And it added up.
Yeah.
Now that's, that's house.
But we applied the same exact
methodology to startups.com.
Yeah,
that's it.
When you put constraints on,
it doesn't limit the output.
It cuts the crap that
was limiting the output
because it was never
output in the first place.
There's so much stuff that just
gets in the way, and that's
the beauty of that level of
focus and just saying, I'm
just gonna do this one thing,
because it doesn't leave room
for those other distractions.
It doesn't leave room for those
other time stealing things
that weren't going to get to
output in the first place.
They were never part of output.
Right, right.
Regardless of man, some of
them have their space and
they are important, right?
Yes, we do still need
to talk to our teams.
We do need slack.
We do have to be mindful
about the fact that there,
it does eat time and it does
take away from productivity.
It doesn't.
Yeah.
And this isn't say that
I, I, you know, never
respond to Slack, never
have meetings, never.
Like that's ridiculous.
It's, look at what those are
and ask yourself, where's
the core bit of value
and optimizing for that.
Then take that discipline, take
that, take your own discipline.
Expanded across
the organization.
'cause here's where it
gets real interesting.
If I could be, let's say two,
three times more productive,
what happens if I can get
a hundred other people?
To be two, three times
more productive or said
differently, four other
people.
So I don't need 12 people.
You're compounding the
compounding at that point.
Yeah.
This is where we
get some exponential
differences in, in output.
Here's how we
institutionalize this.
Uh, and Ryan, you and I have
been living through this for
a very long time, and we can
speak volumes to the efficacy.
What we did is we took all of
our timelines as a company.
And we moved all of them
from months and months and
months like we do planning of
course, like ahead of time.
So, you know, kind of
know what project path is.
Yeah.
You gotta know
where you're going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we don't give
anything more than a week.
So everything has to
be done by Friday.
Now, people are, this is
what people in Reddit,
free tech, you can't get
everything done by Friday.
All software can't
be built by Friday.
Do you not ship features that
can't get done by Friday?
No moron.
Sorry, I'm a little fired
up about, uh, by Reddit.
Um, that doesn't make any sense.
Like, why do you even say that?
I hear Reddit coming
for you right now.
Will, I
can hear the clack of a,
they're the way of a thousand
neck beards upon you,
and so, uh, no, but what it
is, is no, you basically what
you do is you say, what part of
it can we get done by Friday?
Yes.
Break it down and focus on that.
It's put the data, the
side of the drawer
face, that's all you.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That's it.
It's an eight week project.
What can you get
done on this project?
What segment can you
get done by Friday?
Yeah, Reddit saw you
hitting people with
sticks until they ship the
entire product in a week.
That's what they were like,
you're for, you're overworking.
You're micromanaging.
You're doing all that.
No, no.
We're just saying like,
just figure out what you
can get done by Friday.
Yeah, and what's interesting
is once you start doing that,
you start thinking about what
can I get done by Friday?
It turns out you actually
get a lot more done by Friday
when you pick Friday as the
target, when you break things
down into smaller pieces
because here's the fun thing.
You can always do more.
Right?
Right.
If it turns out like if you
pick too small of a target,
you can add onto that.
Yeah.
Right.
But you can't do the inverse.
I'll use meetings as
the example, right?
Yeah.
So if you set it for
an hour meeting and
you go spend the hour.
There's nothing you
can do about that.
You set a meeting
for 15 minutes, it
turns out it needs 30.
You can add 15 more minutes to
the meeting and get to 30 and
get the outcome that you needed.
But if it turns out you could
have done it in 15, what
the hell did you just do
with the other 45 minutes?
You wasted it.
That's exactly, it.
Wasted it for everybody that
was sitting in that room.
I had the same thing I do
the my office hours, which
I'm gonna start here in an
hour, and I do back-to-back
office hours with our founders
every week, and they're
only 15 minute increments,
uh, for my office hours.
Everyone initially is like,
well, what am I gonna possibly
get done in 15 minutes?
I was like, A lot.
If you get to the point
and when people get on
the, the call, they're
prepared, they move quickly.
They like, uh, we don't
talk about the weather.
We just get straight
into right into it.
Exactly what they
need help with.
Right.
We've got 15 minutes.
Go.
The timeline forces focus.
It does and, and so let's
keep building on that again.
Our Reddit mob was like, well,
you're just trying to like,
you know, grind everybody down.
Like no, you're
missing the points.
It's actually the
polar opposite.
Number one, our team sets
their own deadlines, so it
would only be a problem if
I was telling them they have
to do something by Friday.
Right.
That takes three weeks, which
is how everybody, right,
you have to ship three works
weeks of stuff in one week.
That's what's not all
we're saying, right?
No.
Instead we're saying it's
a three week project.
I get it.
What part, what third can
you get done by Friday?
Now, here's the other thing
that that was really unexpected
that came out of this.
When something takes
three weeks to do.
Or, you know, you have, you
have a three week timeline.
It's like this weight
that's over your
shoulders the entire time.
Yeah.
It's like when you have a
term paper due and you know,
at the, the beginning of
the, the semester that it's
gonna be due at the end of
the semester and there's this
weird weight that just sits
with you the entire time.
And are you saying that
people might procrastinate
in that same period?
Never.
Never.
Right?
No.
But, but here's the more
important part though.
At the end of the week,
you can just go home.
You got your work done.
Instead of saying, well,
it's not really done
'cause I still have two
more weeks worth of work.
Well, guess what?
On Friday or whatever your
timeline is, you can stop
worrying about that because
you actually accomplished what
you're supposed to accomplish
and you can go be free.
This was one of my number one
pet peeves personally, is that
I could, no matter what I did
at work, I could never feel
like I like, like I was done.
I always, well, yeah.
When you
pick things, if you pick
something with a two month
timeframe at the end of
every day until that whole
thing is done, there is
a sense of incompletion.
There is, and, and it drives.
Correct.
It's a huge issue,
by the way.
Yeah.
It's, it's also, it's,
it's horribly demoralizing.
Demoralizing.
I was just gonna say
exactly that and, and I
found it as much in myself.
One of the problems I
have is like a lot of the
things that I do have very
long timelines, right?
So if we're gonna like, release
a new feature, like the, the
amount of planning that goes
around that the, you know,
the round of development
takes months and months and
months and months and months.
So I can never leave today and
say, oh, I got everything done.
Yeah.
So the first thing I do, and I'm
very, uh, militant about this,
the first thing I do with my day
is I say, what is the absolute
least I need to get done today?
And by least that doesn't mean
that I'm undershooting the mark.
I'm saying no matter what
this has to get done.
Yes.
Ideally I'll get done more.
To be honest.
I usually don't get more
done, but I think that's
part of the interesting
part of, of the exercise.
You start getting pretty good
at estimating what you can
actually accomplish, I think.
But I think, but the bigger
thing is I'm doing a better job
of accounting for the fact that
there's, it's not like nothing
else will happen in my day.
So, you know, let's say
that, that I need to
write a newsletter, right.
You know, for, for, for
what we do with this
podcast and stuff like that.
I know that it'll take a
couple hours and if I had
nothing else to do in the day,
like truly, like I, I was on
an island somewhere and no
one else could talk to me.
Maybe that's how long it
would take, but that's
totally unrealistic.
I'm a CEO of a company.
Right?
Right.
Like all kinds
of stuff comes up all day long.
Yep.
It's start, stop, start, stop.
And each time you lose, you
lose steam, you lose momentum
a hundred percent.
And so I know it's going to
take longer, so I can't stack
three more of those up because
the amount of, uh, distractions
I'm gonna have are meaningful.
Okay.
But now.
If I don't account for that, and
I say, well, hey, a newsletter
only takes two hours, so I'll
do two hours for that and two
hours for this next thing,
an hour for the next thing,
an hour for the next thing.
Where I lose is I will
never actually get all that
stuff done right because, or
more specifically, I'll get
distracted in so many places
that no one thing will get done.
I'd rather be in a position
where all I'm doing is
putting DAOs in the sides
of, of drawers for like, you
know, for hours straight.
And yes, maybe I'd like
to go build the drawers
too, but so long as I get
this one thing done, I can
then move on to the next.
So I just say laser
focused on one thing at
a time, and as a result,
I get a lot of shit done.
You do, and like let's circle
back to that point around
like the longer timeframes
and where that becomes all
of that, that demoralizing
weight that sits over you.
Yeah, because part of what's
happening on a daily basis,
this is why like when you
have those longer timeframes,
you have more you have to
accomplish before you feel like
you've accomplished anything.
When you don't break it down
into its constituent parts and,
and deal with 'em in that way.
Is that you do know that
those distractions are
gonna come into play, right?
And that's why there's
that constant pressure.
Well, if I just get a little
bit more done today, right?
Yeah.
If I just get, if I had just
gotten a little more done then,
then maybe if that happens, or
if this happens, and our ability
to predict these things on a
daily basis gets a bit better.
But when the minute you expand
that to like even a week
can be difficult sometimes.
Two weeks, three weeks,
four weeks, a month
out, six months out.
Forget it, man.
You ask the team what they can
get done in six months, you're
gonna get some bloated plan that
is maybe 15 to 20% accurate.
Right?
Right.
Ask what you can
get done by Friday.
You get accuracy and magic.
It actually happens.
Okay.
Let's stick with that.
It actually happens.
Yeah.
You see, if we were to say, what
can you get done by next Friday?
Number one, a million
things can happen between
now and next Friday.
Yep.
So you, you, the moment
you, is it even valid?
We even still need
to do it, right?
Yeah.
You name it, right?
A million things change.
Okay.
The second thing is, if I'm
not accountable for until
next Friday, I don't need
to act with, with any sense
of purpose or urgency.
And people give
urgency a bad rap.
They think urgency means I'm
being sloppy and stressed
and things like that.
Urgency just means
there's a priority to it.
There's just a priority to you,
you're clear on the priority.
That's all it means to me.
Right, right.
This is the urgent one.
Correct.
Right.
And that just means I might
have nine other things to
do, but this is the priority
I need to get this done
more so than everything.
Yep.
We've been working off this
system for well over a decade.
It is so easy to manage to.
Yeah.
And again, I think the greatest
thing is the reason that, you
know, we can have these, uh,
leadership meetings and people
will say, Hey, I actually
already know what I need to do
is, because it ain't frigging
hard to know what you need to
do in four and a half days.
Right?
Yeah.
Like it's so incrementally
easy to manage, and
again, I know everybody
takes this to software.
I'm actually least concerned
about software when I
talk about this, right?
Ryan, you can appreciate
this as, as, as a CMO.
Marketing is incredibly hard
to manage around timelines.
What are you gonna get done?
Like, you know, uh, what are
you gonna achieve, et cetera.
Making smaller parts is
incredibly important.
Sales is another great example.
Yeah.
How many outbound calls, uh,
you know, what kinda response
rates did you get, et cetera.
Like, there's so many things
that if you manage 'em
in a, in a smaller chunk,
they're easier to talk about.
When you expand them out, when
you expand out these initiatives
for like a month into them, even
looking month time, them becomes
very difficult, right?
They're too morphous.
Yep.
And again, like it's, it both
compresses time in a way.
It creates focus.
Yeah.
And it's, but it's
also very free, right?
So that the compression
doesn't come with pain.
It's, it's the opposite.
It creates freedom for all
that other stuff too, right?
So, yeah, let's talk about
what, what do we do with all
this, this, this newfound time.
That's the part everybody
on Reddit missed.
I was like, dude, everybody
thought I was being like
the ultimate slave driver.
Uh, all they did is
read the headline.
I get it.
Social media, but,
but I was like, no.
Here's what's
magical about this.
We freed up so much time
to go do other stuff.
And again, everybody misread
it to mean like, compressing
your time so I can make
you do five more things.
I was like, no, those
five more things are
go home, go to the gym.
Fuck you want.
I don't care.
Right?
Like the point is you already
got your work done here.
You can feel finished
and you couldn't leave.
Like, who's opposed to that?
Blows my mind.
Got Abe on the headline.
You buried the lead on that one.
Will.
I did.
It was my fault.
But, but the, the point is,
if we can say, look, if we
stay, if we keep our timelines
compressed, if we stay focused
and we just knock out the
stuff that you know needs
to get done for this week,
then all of us can say, you
should be leaving your desk,
so to speak, metaphorically
right now because you're done.
How good does that feel
in a business that is
not well known for saying
you're done for the day?
Like, like we don't clock
outta this business ever.
How good does it feel to
be able to walk out the
door and be like, you know
what, for today I am good.
I'll more, I got
what I need do today.
Done Right.
Go enjoy that soccer game or go
enjoy yoga or go,
it doesn't matter.
Whatever man.
Yeah.
More time doesn't have
to mean more work.
It can correct and
sometimes it does.
You can pack more, but
sometimes the ROI is a nap.
Right?
Yeah.
Or it's time to actually like
make a healthy lunch and eat it.
I can't help but look at
reclaimed time as founder
equity and that you get to
reinvest where it matters the
most, wherever that might be.
Right?
That might be personally,
that might be professional,
that might be with the team,
might be where, wherever.
But I think that, you know,
the point isn't to fill every
hour, it's to make every
hour that you do use count.
Yeah.
And I think that's where
it most often goes wrong
for founders.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think for like for me,
because I know every day I
have this system in place,
I never have to feel like
any day I have to like boil
the ocean on any given day.
I'm like, you know what,
today is just put das in
in drawer sides, right.
That's it.
That's all I gotta do today.
And if I do that, look for
everybody listening, I have to,
I have to do this will, because
nobody knows what a dayto is.
Will's making tiny little slots
in the side of a board that
he's gonna stick in something
called a biscuit, which is
just a flat piece of wood that
fits exactly the same size.
As the slot he made so he
can connect it to another
piece of wood with glue and
it'll be that much more,
uh, structurally rigid.
That ability to be able
to condition ourselves and
everybody around us to be able
to say, oh man, if I just get
today's thing done, I'm free.
Yeah, I can go invest that time
wherever the hell else I want.
Is awesome if what you're,
you know, if what we were
saying was, I want you to
take four hours for the work
and get it done in two hours
so I can give you four hours
more work to get done in two
hours, that that breaks, right?
Because then you gotta realize
when you compress time, you're
also burning all of your focus.
Right, and like we talked
about before, that is
definitely not linear.
It's not anything close to it.
But on the other hand,
if you spread your focus
over like eight, 10
hours, that's way worse.
I would rather have that focus
put into exactly what I need
to get done and say a two hour
block, and then be able to
take the next two hours off
to do anything, take a nap
for that matter than to try
to spread it across four hours
and have nothing to show for.
Correct.
Yeah.
I think that's the thing, man,
like the, the founder fantasy is
like having 25 hours in a day.
The founder reality is
that there's at least 10
of those are wasted, right?
Yeah.
You already have 'em.
That's what you
need to do, right?
Stop chasing more hours and
start respecting the ones you
already have by doing something
extremely useful with them.
Overthinking your startup
because you're going it alone.
You don't have to, and honestly,
you shouldn't because instead,
you can learn directly from
peers who've been in your shoes.
Connect with bootstrap
founders and the advisors
helping them win in the
startups.com community.
Check out the startups.com
community@www.startups.com
to see if it's for you.
Could be just the
thing you need.
I hope to see you inside.