I recently met a founder running a service-based startup with a name so forgettable I thought it was a joke. No website. No social media presence. Nada.

Despite this, they were generating 6 figures in monthly revenue with high profit margins. How? They leveraged their network for initial customers and grew through word-of-mouth. No fancy marketing campaigns or viral content, just a solid product and good old-fashioned hustle.

This may go against a lot of popular advice for early-stage founders these days, but it's important to consider a different perspective, especially for solo founders.

Common time-wasters for early-stage founders

  1. Obsessing over social media presence: Likes and follows feel good, but they often don't translate to actual business growth or revenue.
  2. Blogging about every update: Unless writing is the product, spending hours on blog posts about minor updates is rarely the best use of time.
  3. Chasing the perfect branding: A perfect logo or website is nice, but revenue is more important in the early stages.
  4. Attending unproductive networking events: Be selective. If an event doesn't lead to meaningful connections or valuable learning, it's just a time sink.
  5. Overthinking the tech stack: Use familiar tools to ship the MVP. Optimization can come later.

What to focus on instead

  1. Building a product people want: Talk to potential customers. Solve real problems. Iterate based on feedback.
  2. Delivering value: Focus on making existing customers so satisfied they naturally spread the word.
  3. Sales: Revenue solves many problems. Get comfortable with selling, even if it's just reaching out to your network.
  4. Learning essential skills: Acquire only the skills needed to move forward. Everything else can wait.
  5. Micro-experiments for growth: Run small, quick tests to find what works for your specific business. This could be A/B testing landing pages, trying different pricing models, or experimenting with various customer acquisition channels.
  6. Automating repetitive tasks: Identify time-consuming, repetitive tasks in your workflow and find ways to automate them.
  7. Developing a 'minimum viable process': Create basic, repeatable processes for core business functions. This sets the foundation for scaling and makes it easier to delegate tasks as you grow.
  8. Self-care: Burnout is a real risk. Make time for sleep, exercise, and mental health.

The bottom line

It's worth noting that I'm actually a big fan of building in public. In most cases, I recommend it as it can serve as an effective marketing strategy and help create personal connections with your audience. My point is more about the pitfalls of producing weekly company blogs and pointless content just to appease algorithms. There's a balance to strike.

Startups we work with at Evernomic often have founders with an active personal brand, building in public. However, many of the startups don’t even have social media accounts, let alone weekly company blogs.

This isn't to say that social media, blogging, or branding are always a waste of time. For some businesses, these can be valuable tools. However, for most early-stage startups, especially those with limited resources, they can be a distraction from core business-building activities if not approached strategically.

The primary focus should be on building something people want and getting it into their hands. Everything else is secondary.

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