It is Saturday evening, you are in the middle of dinner with your wife and probably friends you have not seen in weeks and your cell phone rings, or worse, you get an email from your Entrepreneur. This is not necessarily an indication of bad news. As those of us who have lived the life for long enough know, we are the ones who get the call: when he has a great idea and needs to talk about it now, he just saw something on TV and thinks it applies to us, wants to have more detail on an email you sent three-weeks ago and is only now reading, etc...
We live for this call. When we don't get the call, we have to assume that our time and usefulness must be coming to an end. If not for those mid-weekend or middle of the night calls and emails, we are surely on our way out...well, maybe not. I have made many mistakes in my time as a number two, but I can say unequivocally that my biggest mistake was making my time entirely too available to the Entrepreneurs that I worked for. I would work 15+ hour days in pursuit of their dreams and then field calls into the wee-hours of my supposed free time. I sacrificed my personal life because I saw that as my "equity" stake and how I was investing in this great company.
What I failed to realize and apply was simple economics (ironic since I have a BS in Quantitative Economics). Time, especially in small businesses and as it applies to Entrepreneurs, can be considered a commodity. The more of it [time] that you supply to be utilized by the Entrepreneur, the more of it that will be consumed, but as you make it more available, the value of that time drops. Though your personal perceived value may increase for a period (because you are so committed and valuable to the organization), in the mind of the Entrepreneurial Consumer you time value decreases because he can have more of it at the same price (i.e. whatever you are providing).
Here are some rules that you should apply when starting with a start-up or entrepreneur:
1. Time is Valuable - Every minute you provide to the organization is valuable and you should guard it closely.
2. Understand Supply and Demand - The more you supply, the cheaper the commodity (your time) becomes and the more that will be consumed (do not allow your time to be marginalized)
3. Force your Entrepreneur to Sacrifice - Your Entrepreneur will not think less of your if you do not take his calls over the weekend (unless it is an emergency, and unless you are a start-up nuclear reactor, almost nothing cannot wait until Monday).
We live for this call. When we don't get the call, we have to assume that our time and usefulness must be coming to an end. If not for those mid-weekend or middle of the night calls and emails, we are surely on our way out...well, maybe not. I have made many mistakes in my time as a number two, but I can say unequivocally that my biggest mistake was making my time entirely too available to the Entrepreneurs that I worked for. I would work 15+ hour days in pursuit of their dreams and then field calls into the wee-hours of my supposed free time. I sacrificed my personal life because I saw that as my "equity" stake and how I was investing in this great company.
What I failed to realize and apply was simple economics (ironic since I have a BS in Quantitative Economics). Time, especially in small businesses and as it applies to Entrepreneurs, can be considered a commodity. The more of it [time] that you supply to be utilized by the Entrepreneur, the more of it that will be consumed, but as you make it more available, the value of that time drops. Though your personal perceived value may increase for a period (because you are so committed and valuable to the organization), in the mind of the Entrepreneurial Consumer you time value decreases because he can have more of it at the same price (i.e. whatever you are providing).
Here are some rules that you should apply when starting with a start-up or entrepreneur:
1. Time is Valuable - Every minute you provide to the organization is valuable and you should guard it closely.
2. Understand Supply and Demand - The more you supply, the cheaper the commodity (your time) becomes and the more that will be consumed (do not allow your time to be marginalized)
3. Force your Entrepreneur to Sacrifice - Your Entrepreneur will not think less of your if you do not take his calls over the weekend (unless it is an emergency, and unless you are a start-up nuclear reactor, almost nothing cannot wait until Monday).
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