There’s so much to do, especially in a startup. Or in any company. The smaller the company is, the more tasks per person.
We all have some task we like to do, things we know we are good at. Then there are tasks that needs to be done, which we find less fun to do, things we’re not so good at and feel uncomfortable in doing.
Prioritise shitty work
“Shitty work” is extremely important, especially in startups and small businesses. And by shitty I mean that you feel uncomfortable with the task. It can be about taking care of the economy, to finish the last thing on that contract or picking up the phone and call that call.
It’s normal to feel that way, because you are uncomfortable with the task. But the task is critical to your business. You have to prioritise and execute.
Are you a designer, you want to show off your professional pride. Each pixel must be in the right place, the logo must be stylish, the typeface must be in harmony with the text. The landing page needs to be polished.
If you are developer, the code need to be well structured, you need to make that Facebook integration and the feature you wrote a month ago needs to be polished a little extra, so the code is clean and stylish.
Are you a product owner, you need to revisit your last wireframe. It must be responsive, you have to get that Instagram feed and this new service people talk about you need to dig deeper in. You have the perfect idea and just need to get it down to a sketch. Life is good.
The above is a trophy for you as a professional person or a reward because you worked on it during the evenings and weekends. And that goes for everyone. Freelancers, entrepreneurs and experts.
All of the above is important, but it is not more important than understanding the customers.
Understanding the customer
Many users look beyond the codebase, they are not as interested as you that your logo looks good on a Macbook Pro retina display or that you implemented the new way to detect and filter the news. Users tastes, expectations and context is changing and they are not as interested as you to dig down at macro level in your work.
You make fake progress.
Things should work and give the user a value.
What you do is not always the the most important for the customer or the user. It is important for you as a professional person and worker. A difficult balancing you have to learn to handle to be successful and not have to work yourself to death.
Ask yourself why
Make a todo list every morning and ask yourself why. Why should I add support for Instagram, why should I create a wireframe on a new landing page, why should I go on the Most Promising Startup meetup? A simple and honest question that saved me much time and effort a few times.
Building a successful business and product is all about knowing what to do and what not to do. Then you need to prioritise and do shitty work sometimes.