My friend Auren has a good post on a very important responsibility for entrepreneurs: the expedient killing of stuff that is not bringing value. He summarizes the issue:
Being able to kill things early is essential to the long-term growth and success of any company. But recognizing that you should be searching for things to kill is the first step to building a better company.
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As your company grows, you’ll have more things – both big and small – that either weigh down growth or are not core to long-term success. The companies that work proactively to get rid of these issues and devote resources to the areas that matter are the ones that will be able to remain nimble, innovative, and win.
This is also interesting to me as a VC. Usually, we are not in a position to make the killing decisions at our portfolio companies. So, our job is to prod our entrepreneur partners in their constant pruning of their organizations, and provide the necessary encouragement for them to take action.
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