VC Minute – quick advice to help startup founders fundraise better.
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As we were building SpringTime, the first fund was too small to pay for salaries so I had a full-time job. I worked for a consulting firm in the startup ecosystem, you’ve probably heard me talk about them before, called Established. They’re the folks that run the Startup of the Year program among a lot of other wonderful work. As happens at a small company. my role was sales account management, project management, AirTable guru, startup sourcing, mentoring, event assistant, whatever was needed. And then I would have to fit SpringTime work in the in-betweens. I did this for four years. One of my touchstones that kept me sane during this time was “relentless reprioritization.” This is not to say that I was chasing shiny objects every day. It’s about understanding the priorities of the business, pointing in that direction, and then having the clarity to stay on target.
Stay on target.
To put it another way, prioritization is knowing the destination. Relentless reprioritization is continually navigating along the way to the destination.
The other side of the reprioritization coin is saying “no.” The best CEOs in our portfolio are very good at saying no. They know what their priorities are and if something doesn’t align with that direction, they politely say, no. They deeply respect their time, their priorities and their focus.
If you feel like you’re going crazy because you’re being pulled in a thousand directions every day, set your priorities for the long run, relentlessly reprioritize within the day, and say no to everything else.
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