Jason M. Lemkin argues founders must both work very hard and also work smarter to avoid burnout. He introduces five practical self-care / productivity strategies for founders; in this excerpt he emphasizes that sheer effort alone leads to burnout and presents the top recommendation: hire one great VP or executive to share responsibility and improve outcomes.
You've got to do it. And first of all, I worry about all the TikToks and stuff these days in the social media telling you the way to take care of yourself as a founder is to work less hard. That's not true. The real answer, painfully, is to work harder. You've got to push through the tougher times. But that alone isn't enough if all you do is work harder. If you work, if you truly work 80 hours a week, a hundred hours a week, you will burn yourself completely up. So it's work harder, but work smarter. And how do you do that? Okay, so let me give you five ideas on how to actually take care of yourself as a founder that will actually make a difference from the Saster post. Okay, the most important one of all, this one always works. It's worked for me again and again. It worked for me twice as a founder. It's working for me at Saster. Go hire one great vp, one great executive on your team.
