4 ms·

I think you've misunderstood the parent. By making explicit that the founder does all these things, it makes the urgency of hiring and delegating clear.

buzzybee 9y ago
It's only helpful if it adds something to the feedback loop. That's what an organization and its projects need at every stage: healthy feedback. If it's too far into fantasy, it gets forgotten and replaced with something more expedient; if it goes completely unaddressed, the absence manifests as some other failure. So, early org chart is only useful if it doesn't jump too far ahead of what the business is: If you discover you need a different organization to execute on the plan, there's no point in planning for scaling the existing one out. But if what's being followed is a "hire a great team and great things will happen" kind of plan, then there's no conflict since it just means you've considered both near and long-term aspects of building a great team.
- dilemma 9y ago
  I think you should read the GP again.
Silhouette 9y ago
The trouble is that it may make the urgency of hiring and delegating seem more than it is. Plenty of businesses won't need separate people to take on each responsibility for a while, if ever. Other than the really obvious ones, a new business probably won't even know which responsibilities might become large enough to need dedicated people looking after them yet. Hiring is always a fine balancing act, and hiring the wrong people and/or to fill the wrong positions is just as toxic to a new business as not hiring and delegating when the right time comes.
dasil003 9y ago
Sorry, what do you think I'm misunderstanding? The GP is clearly suggesting thinking about role definition from day one rather than waiting until the 10-20 employee phase. I'm stating unequivocally that I think that is a mistake. The "urgency of hiring and delegating" only kicks in once you have a level of certainty of what needs to be done. Every employee you bring on adds not only burn rate, but also communication overhead. The only thing that gets a startup from the garage phase to actually being able to series A and credibly hire more than 10 people is for every founder and early employee to ruthlessly identify things that need to be done and execute on them. This idea of documenting what exactly founders are doing and thinking about delegating them is what YC has dubbed "playing house"*. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html

buzzybee 9y ago

It's only helpful if it adds something to the feedback loop. That's what an organization and its projects need at every stage: healthy feedback. If it's too far into fantasy, it gets forgotten and replaced with something more expedient; if it goes completely unaddressed, the absence manifests as some other failure. So, early org chart is only useful if it doesn't jump too far ahead of what the business is: If you discover you need a different organization to execute on the plan, there's no point in planning for scaling the existing one out. But if what's being followed is a "hire a great team and great things will happen" kind of plan, then there's no conflict since it just means you've considered both near and long-term aspects of building a great team.

dilemma 9y ago
I think you should read the GP again.

Silhouette 9y ago

The trouble is that it may make the urgency of hiring and delegating seem more than it is. Plenty of businesses won't need separate people to take on each responsibility for a while, if ever. Other than the really obvious ones, a new business probably won't even know which responsibilities might become large enough to need dedicated people looking after them yet. Hiring is always a fine balancing act, and hiring the wrong people and/or to fill the wrong positions is just as toxic to a new business as not hiring and delegating when the right time comes.

dasil003 9y ago

Sorry, what do you think I'm misunderstanding? The GP is clearly suggesting thinking about role definition from day one rather than waiting until the 10-20 employee phase. I'm stating unequivocally that I think that is a mistake. The "urgency of hiring and delegating" only kicks in once you have a level of certainty of what needs to be done. Every employee you bring on adds not only burn rate, but also communication overhead. The only thing that gets a startup from the garage phase to actually being able to series A and credibly hire more than 10 people is for every founder and early employee to ruthlessly identify things that need to be done and execute on them. This idea of documenting what exactly founders are doing and thinking about delegating them is what YC has dubbed "playing house"*. [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html