I keep on hearing how great these guys from 37Signals are. They have great advice, it’s so brilliant, and yet it’s obvious sense, and yet people don’t listen to that advice. And then it occurred to me that people want to believe what they want to believe, then seek out advice that confirms their intuition. Then they think “wow, what a great intuition I have!” instead of acting on that advice.

This type of mentality needs to be eliminated as swiftly as possible, and it’s built into all of us from birth. There are two distinguishing factors I see in good entrepreneurs: 1) they actively solicit advice, 2) they immediately act on that advice. Most “entrepreneurs” have this false sense of productivity by doing part 1, yet they don’t follow up with part 2. Why is this?

I’ve had and still have this issue myself. And when I nod my head in approval at a good idea, it’s usually because it’s a good idea. I don’t follow up with part 2 not because I’m lazy, but because I can’t figure out how to get it done in the limited time I have. So then the idea gets tabled, never to return to unless I hear the same advice again. But even when I hear the same advice from a second source for the second time, I’ll probably get stuck in this endless loop of not listening to very good advice.

Here’s my advice: every time you hear good advice, do SOMETHING SMALL that helps you in the direction to achieve that advice. If someone says “start doing test driven development”, you’ll nod your head in approval because it’s a good idea. But then you get back to your desk and have no idea where to begin, the idea gets swept away in the back of your brain, and you’ll continue writing shitty untested code. Herein lies the problem that all of you face, even if you pride yourself on getting stuff done.

In fact, that’s the precise story of what happened last summer. We brought in great summer help from a guy named Sam Liu, and he coded his ass off, but things were breaking. “Jess, Andy, let’s do testing!” Andy and I were so busy were other things that we tabled the idea for a “free weekend” when we had nothing more important to do. But startups being startups, no free weekends exist. And therefore non-urgent tasks don’t get done. Ever.

But I started doing things with a new attitude. We started testing our code incrementally, knowing that it wouldn’t be perfect. We didn’t look into doing things perfectly; instead, we followed the Steve Blank model of doing “the minimum viable product”, yet applying this to everyday things such as following advice. And it works brilliantly because the advice you seek actually has an impact. And most advice never gets that far!

Next time you hear good advice, nod in approval, then write down the LEAST POSSIBLE thing you can get done in order to be making progress in that direction. Then when you get home, allocate an hour or two to get that thing done. This means that half hour meetings with prominent people should actually take up three hours from your day, because you’ll need time to execute on all advice. And if you think that’s too much time to spare, you’re wasting your time by taking the meeting.

The sad thing is that you probably won’t listen to any of this advice.

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