FIXZR

Startups are tough. From your tiny room you’re trying to take over the world. You shout and no one hears, you dance naked and no one cares. It can therefore be tempting to focus on areas where you have more control, where when you make a decision the results are clear and tangible. It is for this reason that many people obsess too much about their product (there may be some author bias in here).

Marketing is tough, but playing with the product (your train set) is cool. You add a new feature, it’s there for you to see. You change the design and hey presto you’re achieving something. On the  , the 5 sales calls you made have gone nowhere. Over time, to keep your spirits up, you turn to the product for a bit of a pick me up. Soon your laying out all sorts of funky new train tracks and having a great time playing with Thomas and his Friends. The more fun with the train set, the less appealing those sales call seem - you may even be waiting for Version 2 before you make them (now this is a sure sign you’re in trouble, and need to put Thomas, Percy and James away).

To avoid ending up like a chimp in a cage playing with his what-nots, make sure to set hard boundaries and objectives for externally facing activities. If you don’t have the luxury of having dedicated departments to perform each function, make sure you are forcing yourself to allocate enough of your day to each task. This is not rocket science, but it is easy to go astray. Be proud of you product now* and go sell.

* eBay and Twitter never got round to site design or graphics consulting, yet they are all doing fine and will sort these problems out later!