Dr. Thomas J. PowellEntrepreneur | International Financier | Doctor of Law & Policy | Lifestyle Enthusiast

The real limited resource for founders isn’t money, it’s time.

7 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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Dr. Thomas J. Powell argues founders are constrained by time, not money. He says clearly stating your challenge attracts the right collaborators, and the best way to find committed team members is to involve them in solving the problem itself, not just pitch them on the vision.

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Part of this is, is that we have. We all have one primary limited resource. Most of the time, founders thinks that that primary resource is money, but it's actually time. Right. So the reason we start with the challenge is because if, and if you articulate it correctly, you're either going to attract or repel the people. So meaning. And by repel doesn't mean they're turned off and go like, no, no, I don't want to know. It's either that they've recognized that that's a problem that they want to solve or be a part of solving. So let's go down from the employment standpoint. If you're solving a problem and you want to find committed team members.
The best way to find the committed team members is to get them involved in the problem that you're going to solve and that they're going to be participating in solving that. So an old story about the Empire State Building was a gentleman is talking to the various people, and, you know, it's like, oh, I'm an iron worker. I'm putting the beams in here. And another person was doing such and such and such. And they get to a person who is laying bricks, and that's kind of one of those really mundane jobs sometimes, and they ask, what are you doing? He goes, I'm building the tallest building in the world.
Right? And so he was engaged in it. And maybe that's a false story and it didn't really happen, but it does go to that when you have team members that are committed.