Founder Effectiveness Is About Working on the Right Things

There is a critical distinction between being efficient and being effective. Many founders fall into the trap of being highly efficient at the wrong tasks.

• Efficiency: Getting a lot of tasks done in a short amount of time. You can be very efficient at clearing your inbox, fixing minor bugs, or writing documentation.
• Effectiveness: Working on the few, critical tasks that actually drive the business forward.

You can be highly efficient by completing ten tasks in a day, but if eight of those tasks didn't need to be done, you were not effective. An effective founder might only complete two tasks, but they are the two that will have the greatest impact on the company's growth.

The Early-Stage Trap:

• Before Product-market fit: The founder's job is to do whatever it takes to find Product-market fit. This often involves "doing things that don't scale"—unscalable, manual tasks like one-on-one onboarding, personal sales, and intensive customer support.
• After Product-market fit: As the company grows, the founder's role must evolve. The unscalable tasks that were once critical become low-leverage distractions. The founder must transition from "doing the work" to "designing the system that does the work."

The key to this transition is learning to identify and focus only on the highest-leverage activities. Frameworks like the The Risk vs Certainty Framework for Founder Focus can help guide this process.

Tags: #SaaS #founder #mindset #effectiveness #efficiency #focus #productivity #strategy