There’s a correlation between a founder’s use of time and the performance of their business.
The hypothesis: founders that use their time strategically (instead of as an individual contributor), experience higher revenue growth, increased employee engagement, higher team output, and generally greater team performance.
Here’s an example of how this works.
In the past, I worked with a founder who told me that nearly 100% of his time was reactive and unpredictable. He shared,
“An onslaught of seemingly urgent issues crowds out my time and mental energy. I feel I’m too heads down. Really long stretches of executing without looking up. What are we working toward? My mind is so focused on this start-up, it’s hurt my dating life.”
This is not ideal.
The theme of our work together was shifting him out of individual contributorship and into strategic leadership. This meant he needed to:
- be more intentional with his time;
- improve his ability to mentally disconnect from the business; and
- cultivate more trust with his team.
Some of the most impactful strategies we used to achieve these goals were to:
- realign his time with empathy & build in the essential meeting structures (creating predictability with his time).
- clarify responsibilities with his co-founder.
- identify and analyze recurring customer issues & design systems to solve it (this one thing saved him 20 hours per week).
- develop a process for automating customer updates & platform alerts.
- create recurring dedicated time with co-founder for big picture issues & strategic thinking.
- bring chief engineering problems to the team (instead of bringing solutions to the team to implement).
As a result this founder now reports that 50% of his time is used strategically and is predictable. And the business had a 33% growth in MRR and net customer growth of 30%.
What a big shift in such a short amount of time.
He recently shared with me,
“this morning, I had a great morning. Went to the gym, had breakfast, and checked Slack. Nothing blew up. It felt strange, like a surprise. First time in a long time I felt I could unplug. No customer nor employee problems. Amazing!”
When you’re no longer consumed by the day-to-day in your business, and begin to delegate, let go, and build systems to shift into strategic leadership, you may worry that it might slow you down or hold back progress.
When in reality the opposite is true: you will accelerate progress because you begin to scale.
Why? Because shifting your focus toward strategy teaches you how to use leverage.
Here’s how you can start leveraging your time:
- Take inventory of how much time you’re spending on individual contributor tasks. What percentage of your week is spent on those activities?
- Do the same for your strategic activities.
- Set targets. What percentage of time do you want to be working in individual contributor versus strategic activities?
- For all of the individual contributor activities, ask yourself, “Should I...
- delegate it?” (by clarifying the outcome & the process to deliver)
- automate it?” (so work can be done with zero extra effort)
- eliminate it?” (a conscious decision to drop it)
- do it myself?” (execute at lower levels of energy and batch like work)
Which are which? Here’s a chart to help you see the difference:
My mission is to debunk the myth that start-ups and small business has to be hard. It’s about viewing yourself, your time, your life as a valuable asset of the business—same as any other team member. It’s about knowing when to press the pedal, and when to hit the brakes, based on your unique strengths and stage.
Once you get the hang of it, there’s no going back. You see the forest through the trees. You discover a new mental model for leading and organizing your team that can’t be unseen. And your way of relating to your business and team will be transformed for the better.
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P.S. If you’re eager to have results like these, and would like my support, check out the Beyond 7-Figures Leadership Mastermind. Designed for SaaS Founders, CEOs, Experts, & Business Owners—it’s your gateway to steady growth. In this mentorship program you’ll gain clarity on the bigger picture, grow your confidence, and execute to scale by engaging your whole team. Send me an email if you’d like to learn how the Mastermind can support you.
