Balancing Act: Prioritizing Your Current Business Needs or Working on Long-Term Plans (#018)

Sean and James face a dilemma this week. Starting a business requires constant balancing between meeting short-term demands and working towards our longer-term goals. When you’re faced with an option to work in the business or on the business, what do you prioritize? Is there even a difference between the two? Sean shares insights from the acceleration program in today's episode. He discusses the exhausting, but fruitful process of pitching. When you separate yourself from the business and work on projects that affect our high-level goals, you still have to worry about the present. This is true even for those pursuing their craft and things they love. How do Sean and James cope? Make sure to listen to this episode to find out how. Key Takeaways: This week is all about things that can help startups plan for the long-term and ideas on how to balance your business’s immediate needs. Be attentive to the team’s needs by hiring even before you need it. Take the time to reach out to potential mentors to get feedback, even though it’s time-consuming to find one. It’s crucial to focus on initiatives on key projects that will help you reach the long-term goals and ones that address the immediate needs too. Make sure to equip yourself with the right information when deciding. If you're considering a direction, think about whether you are willing to stick with it and be happy in it. Don't just make decisions based on money and finances. Episode Quotes: Planning the team’s structure and being attentive will help you anticipate the team’s need, even before they need it Sean [00:07:56]: That's been a hard part because part of doing the work too is hiring. Like hiring is part of this process. Recognizing clearly, a little bit too late, that we need help. And that's always the case. The advice we got from the get-go was always trying to hire ahead of time, which is really a piece of hard advice to take because how do you know what I'm supposed to hire ahead of time? Doesn't account for much else. Actually, it doesn't account for creatives because there was no job for creative really back in the day in the industrial age. Finding a mentor and keeping the feedback loop is crucial, even if it’s time-consuming Sean [00:10:48]: I'm just trying to figure out whether this is a normal thing that's going on right now. Because like you're saying it's foreign waters. Or am I just burnt out, or am I burning out? But then that prompts me to think about that whole Adam Grant book, Give and Take. It’s like, you typically feel burnout if you don't have good feedback loops. That may be what I'm lacking. I don't have a good feedback loop. Like our old mentor meeting stuff? Focus on key initiatives that will help you with your long-term goals and the one with the most probability of success Sean [00:16:35]: So clearly the sales messaging will be different. You can't use the same message for all of them, which is what we were trying to do. Which was ineffective. And so now, we just need to plot out a path that has the highest probability for success, and then you just go with it, right. And learn along the way. At least we have some clarity that we need to pick a path versus trying to pursue multiple paths at the same time and, feeling stuck, feeling like we're not getting anywhere. Why working on things that will make you happy in the long term is important to help you succeed James [00:22:17]: It would be the most paying job I would have had by almost 50%. And I was like, “Oh man, I kind of regret not taking it”. But then I thought back to why I didn't really take that offer. Right? It was in an industry that I wasn't really interested in. it was a product management role. I've never done that before. And not that I couldn't have taken the shot to do it. And I think I could have, but I just had to remind myself that, I wouldn't be happy. Show Links: Sell More Faster: The Ultimate Sales Playbook for Startups (Techstars)