Founders struggle to keep track of their work due to the diverse and dynamic nature of their tasks. This includes handling customer feedback, investor meetings, co-founder conversations, mentor advice, and whiteboarding sessions. The lack of a suitable productivity tool leads to repeated re-derivation of conclusions and frustration.
This problem affects startup founders who need to manage a wide range of tasks efficiently. The inability to maintain a productivity system results in wasted time and effort, leading to decreased productivity and increased stress.
Pain Points
- Difficulty in tracking diverse and dynamic tasks
- Lack of suitable productivity tools for founders
- Repeated re-derivation of conclusions
- Increased stress and decreased productivity
- Time-consuming setup and maintenance of productivity systems
I'm a short ways into my startup journey and I'm so frustrated with how difficult it is to keep track of my own work. My day is an endless cyclone of customer feedback, investor meetings, conversations with my cofounder, advice from mentors, whiteboarding sessions, and I'm tossed around so much that I never bother to write anything down. I then forget it and get frustrated when I re-derive the same conclusions over and over again. I've tried every productivity tool of the last 10 years (Roam Research, Notion, Obsidian, Granola, etc.). Some of them have been more sticky than others, but ultimately 80% of my workday is completely different every day. The micro-frictions of setting up a workspace, filing away a note, or figuring out backlinks leads to me never getting it down at all. I just don't have the bandwidth to maintain a productivity system. When I was working as an employee I had the slack to do this (or someone else was maintaining it for me), but that's gone now. I've recently just taken to dumping every bit of signal into a single Apple Note, and then copy-pasting it into Claude to actually get information out. It's the only thing I can actually commit to. But it's also ballooning out of proportion and already starting to bite me. My other founder friends have led me to believe this is a shared experience, but I want to know how widespread it truly is. How do you guys deal with this? *(Full disclosure: I'm poking at this problem because I've found no good solution. Trying for genuine problem understanding, not a pitch.)*