Measuring productivity as a technical founder

Total commits !== productivity

Being a developer is fun. Writing code all day, solving problems, and having a fast feedback loop. These are things I enjoy about programming, and racking up commits is an amusing way to prove to yourself you’re being productive.

As a technical founder, though, it’s easy to keep that developer mindset of measuring yourself based on how much code you pump out that day. Working on the product is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but every other aspect of an early stage startup is your responsibility as well. The talking to users, the content, the outreach, the research, the money, the “message”. All of it. It’s all a part of your product, and it all needs attention.

If you ignore these things and get stuck in your own echo-chamber of moving around bits all day, then you’re not talking to your users, you’re not working on your “message”, and you’re not refining your product. You can’t measure your day-to-day productivity as a technical founder by total number of commits. Some days you’ll write zero code, and other days you’ll rewrite the whole app.

Like non-technical founders can get caught up doing everything besides working on the code, a technical founder can get caught up in only working on the code. Both are destructive mindsets.

Unless you have an existing platform that are waiting to swoon over your next feature, then you should find a good balance between writing code and talking to people. (And if you do have that platform, then you’re likely not an early stage startup.)

But customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make that happen, and it’s harder than it looks.

— Peter Theil in Zero to One

You must realize that if you can’t get your hands dirty answering questions on Quora and Reddit to get people to your site, then who will? If you don’t think spending a day talking to the few users you have is important, then why should anyone else? And even if you pay someone to do it, why would they get pumped up about it if you’re not?

So as you continue on your startup journey, don’t be too hard on yourself on those days you don’t have 100 commits. Keep refining your message and spending time on other parts of the product. A startup needs to be worked on from multiple angles, and it’s up to you — the technical founder — to do it.

One last thing…

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— Cody Reichert, Co-founder at Assertible