Deadlines deserve to be called Lifelines
A startup with minimum resources needs focus. Prioritizing efforts and time spent on marketing activities, development and customer conversations is essential for the survival of a young company. Under these circumstance,
a deadline is the single most reliable friend of a startup.
My company, PaperHive, has felt at multiple times the productive push of a deadline. Our private beta with the Berlin Mathematical School in the beginning of 2016 had a fixed starting date at a conference we presented our work. We had less than 30 days to bring to the world a few thousand lines of code, onboard quickly 3 more developer-colleagues, and talk with 40+ different researchers. We did it successfully.
Self-imposed deadlines significantly improve an individual’s performance. Externally imposed ones improve the productivity even more (Ariely and Wertenbroch, 2002).
The further away the horizon of your startup’s deadlines, the longer your lifeline.
Deadlines are the light in the end of your dark Google Calendar’s tunnel. They definitely deserve to be called Lifelines.
