Chapter 37. 14 Answers That Will Save You 100 Hours
The day we moved out of my basement and into our new office, Ontelaâs chairman, Tom Huseby, came by to wish us well. On the way out, he pulled me aside for a moment:
Youâve got my mobile phone number. If I see itâs you on the caller ID, Iâm almost always going to answer it. Some CEOs take this to mean they shouldnât call unless itâs important. Thatâs stupid.
âYouâre going to face a dozen different decisions each month. Theyâre going to be trivial, minor decisions, like âShould I lease furniture or buy it?â You can either spend three hours thinking about it, or take three minutes and call me. So take three minutes and call me.â
Tom saved me hundreds of hours of overthinking with a few dozen short phone calls. While there are a lot of decisions you will need to struggle through as you learn and grow as CEO, in this chapter, weâll cross a few easy ones off the list.
While there may be slight optimizations to be had here, youâve got better things to do with your time. Just follow the best practices below and you should be set.
Oh, and an obvious disclaimer: this is not a substitute for legal advice, no matter how convincing or certain it may sound.
Without further ado, hereâs my best advice on how to handle some of the mundane dilemmas every startupâs likely to face:
- Should I lease furniture or buy it?
- Donât lease it. First, ask your landlords if they have furniture you can use for free. Then, ...
Get Hot Seat now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.