The challenge most entrepreneurs face when they start to get traction is to hire the right experts, and let them take the helm, so that they can focus on drawing the map, and navigating the ship. It's hard to step away from every area of the business, particularly when you've put your blood, sweat, tears — and probably your life savings — into your company.
But delegation is critical to support growth for a startup, because it allows the founder or founding team to continue to focus on the big picture — to envision a bold future, and create the map to get there.
Every founder I've worked with already knows this. Knowing it isn't the problem. The problem is that "delegate more" is advice, not a decision rule. It points in a direction and says nothing about which task, on which day, should be the first to go. So the desk stays full, and every item on it has a reason it can't leave yet.
Some of those reasons are real. Most of them are six months old. Founders are too close to their own desks to tell the two apart, which is why the fix isn't more resolve. It's a test. Four questions, run against a real task, right now.
The Four-Question Test
Run It Against a Real Task
Four Questions for Anything on Your Desk
Answer honestly, in order. A task has to pass all four to leave. Anything that fails even one is yours, at least for now.
Is it the map, or the rowing?
Drawing the map — where the company is going and why — is the founder's job and nobody else's. Rowing toward a destination that's already set is not. If the destination wouldn't change without you at the oar, it's rowing.
Does it need my judgment, or just my hours?
Ask whether someone holding the same brief would make the same call. If they would, the task isn't using your judgment. It's using your hours, the one resource you cannot hire more of.
Can I put it on paper?
If you can write down what good looks like — the goal, the customer, the pitch you know by heart — someone else can run it. If you can't yet, that's the work to do first. It is still not a reason to keep the task.
Has someone done this before?
Somewhere there is a person who has done this exact thing a hundred times, for companies like yours. If that person exists and isn't you, the task is theirs, and they will do it faster.
Rowing, hours, on paper, done before: four yeses and it leaves. One fail and it stays with you — and now you know exactly why.
The test is easier to run on someone else's desk than your own. Here's a scenario for you...
Molly is the founder of a fintech startup in Boston. Molly has invested in her own business, with backing from a team of Boston-based angel investors. Her team has grown quickly in the past 2 years. She has four people in operations, six in sales, six in product development, three in customer success, plus a fractional CFO.
She knows she needs to invest in marketing, but Molly doesn't have the operational budget to bring on a dedicated full-time team, so Molly and her sales team have been doing ad hoc marketing to support their cold outreach sales approach. They have been able to leverage their existing networks to sign deals with great companies, but they haven't yet been able to scale beyond those contacts.
Running the Test on Molly's Desk
Fails the Test: The Growth Goals
Take the first thing Molly needs before anyone can help her: her one-year, two-year and five-year growth goals. Map, or rowing? Map. That alone is enough, but run the second question anyway: does it need her judgment or her hours? Nobody holding a brief could set those goals for her, because the goals are the brief. One fail is enough. It stays, and it should.
Passes the Test: The Ad Hoc Marketing
Now the marketing she and her sales team have been doing on the side to support cold outreach. Is it rowing? Yes: the destination — the customers they're going after — is already set. Judgment or hours? Hours; the calls her team makes about a campaign are the ones any experienced marketer would make with the same brief. Can it go on paper? Yes: the talk track, the customer, the competitors all can, and she knows them by heart. Has someone done it before? Many times, for companies exactly like hers. Four yeses. It leaves.
That is the whole trick. Not "let go of more," but a rule that tells you which thing, and why, so the handoff is a decision rather than a leap.
What the Desk Is For
What does this mean for founders? It means you can develop even more compelling products. You can focus on scaling operations, hiring high-performing talent, developing strategic relationships, traveling to conferences, participating in industry podcasts, and much, much more.
Maybe you'll even resume that hobby you've been missing as well. And if like many entrepreneurs, your hobby is building your business, might we suggest shuffleboard or bocce ball? They're both easy to pick up, and easy on the joints. We're speaking from experience.
