In my last post I mentioned how there were multiple ways we wasted a lot of time at Snaptalent. The first was indecision, the second was spending time on things that didn't matter. At Snaptalent we spent way too long on things that had absolutely no effect on ultimate success of our business. 

Stupid Things We Did

- Spending time discussing whether the company should comp founders cell phone plans. (This discussion actually included emails to investors. I still can't believe we wasted our investors time with something this menial.)

- Switching bank accounts three times.

- Having 4 closings on our financing and 18 investors

- Prematurely optimizing our server setup. (we had 5 servers at softlayer pushing 20-50k uniques a month)

- Many more things I don't remember right now.

Lessons Learned

1. Block off time for administration at the front end of your startup after your financing closes. Have one person focus on it and get everything done all at once. Don't do it over weeks and weeks, jump on it and remove the distraction. This includes finding office space, setting up utilities, buying and setting up furniture, setting up health insurance, general liability insurance, payroll, accounting, phones, business cards, company credit cards, etc. 

2. When you get into a back and forth about something with your co-founders there is only one question you need to ask

Is this decision material to the outcome of this business?

If the answer is no make a decision on the spot and don't look back. Even if the answer is yes you probably won't have much more data in the near future so do your best to make a decision on the spot.