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Startups are marathons, not sprints; It's about making the right decisions most (if not all) of the time when building, hiring, marketing, etc. Fatigue and exha
by benmathes 15y ago
Startups are marathons, not sprints; It's about making the right decisions most (if not all) of the time when building, hiring, marketing, etc. Fatigue and exhaustion mean bad decisions; There's plenty of research to back this up:
http://likesbuildingthings.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-know-many-many-people-out-here-in.html http://likesbuildingthings.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-know-many-...
People who are willing to take the risk of founding tend to be workaholics by nature, but you don't need to be a workaholic by nature to be a founder. It's bad for you longterm and it sets a poisonous precedent for your company culture.
- dpark 15y agoI find this metaphor interesting, because in a marathon, you run the entire time. At least if you want to win, or even race competitively. You might not be sprinting, but you're running at a hard pace until the finish line,
- Jach 15y ago"What type of runner can run full speed from the very start of the race? That's right. Someone who runs very short distances. But as programmers, we are smarter than that. We just fire the starter pistol again every 100 yards. I don’t know why runners haven't figured that out." --Rich Hickey
- benmathes 15y agoHave you heard of an ultrarun before? It's a run that's longer than a marathon, maybe 50 miles, maybe 100 miles. It's all dependent on the local geography. You don't run those at a fast pace, you complete them in like 8-11 hours. Perhaps that's a better metaphor.