Freedom
On January 2nd, I will wake up and smile, as I realize that there's no time I got to be at the office, no responsibilities to take care of, no team to manage.
At the beginning of this year, we were so focused on increasing our team that we didn't waste time to think of ways that don't need additional team members. And although we learned early on that one more person doesn't mean +1 in productivity, we kept thinking "we need them".
In the last weeks, we noticed that additional team members didn't bring in enough value, but rather drained our energy. Instead of working out business models, we had to take on freelance projects to finance them. Instead of working on the product, we had to manage meetings and feedback sessions. Instead of working when we're productive, we had to be at the office early, even though we would've been able to get more work done late at night.
A startup's success is too often measured by the number of people they have on staff. It's mostly the second question right after "What do you do" at networking events: "How many people are you?"
In the future, I want to ask myself 10 times before every hire, if it's really necessary or can't be solved in a different way.
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