startups and ancient philosophy
Startups are hard. Founders need all the help they can get. There are so many books and blogs on the subject that you could never read them all, especially when you are doing a startup. Maybe it's best to take a step back and look at what all sources have in common, and they are all derivatives of ancient philosophy, the foundation of western thought.
Of ancient philosophers, Aristotle is one of the most highly regarded. He contributed to every academic area known in his day and he made significant contributions to most. He was the first to define the study of logic and biology. He was a smart guy.
Aristotle believed that if you were able to make ethical decisions at all times you would would find the higher good in whatever you sought to accomplish. For Aristotle, being ethical requires you to find the mean between the extremes.
Startups have limited resources. They never have enough time or money. To be successful startups need to pass meaningful milestones, and to do that they need time and the best people. The more of the best people they have, the less time that they need, but the best people cost money, and money equals time to a startup. That is the problem. To get the best people and vendors you have to pay them well and make them comfortable. If your are outsourcing, the best designers cost the most, same for PR people, same for developers. If you are hiring, there is pressure to provide high salaries, a great work space, Aeron chairs, multiple 30 inch Apple displays, and free lunches, among other things.
Applying Aristotle, you have to find the mean between the extremes. You have to be optimally generous in what you spend. An excess in generosity is wastefullness. For a startup, it is probably wasteful to outfit all developers with Apple displays, although multiple displays are a must. Having a
gourmet chef on the payroll, is wasteful, but ordering in for lunch on particularly busy days, so people can work probably isn't. Hiring the most expensive PR agency before you have your beta, just to generate early buzz, is wasteful. Doing so after finding a fit between your product and the market and after careful analysis, maybe isn't.
On the other side of things, stinginess is a deficiency of generosity. If you are stingy when deciding on a designer, you are going to get what you pay for, same with PR people, attorneys, necessary software, equipment, etc. If you are stingy when hiring and retaining your first employees, you can cripple your business, making it impossible to hit your milestones. Sure, you'll have more money in the short-term and you'll have a longer runway, but that is worth nothing if the team you put together will never be able to produce something able to takeoff.
To make the best decisions, just find the mean between the extremes. And, for specific advice, there is always all those books and blogs.
