Time is More Valuable Than Money — Charlie O’Donnell

For a long time, I had a bad gut reaction to expert platforms like Intro.

I’d see ads like “Book Alexis Ohanian for $2,000” and think: “Really? He’s a good guy, but does he really need the money?”

(As it turns out, Alexis uses his Intro earnings to support causes like climate change and to positively impact the lives of marginalized people… but that’s a lot to squeeze into an Instagram ad.)

It felt off–especially when influencers routinely decry charging founders for anything. The thinking goes that founders should only take advice from people who are successful enough not to need to sell their advice–folks who are writing checks versus receiving them.

But over the last year, while writing my book and spending even more time with early founders, my view has flipped. The fact of the matter is that anyone successful enough to be making investments is prioritizing their limited time. They’re trying to spend as much time as possible with folks who have the highest immediate upside potential–and they’re lucky enough to be surrounded by a lot of people worth investing time in.

The question I’ve come upon is where that leaves everyone else who is still trying to figure it all out–whose idea isn’t quite there yet, or whose next steps are surrounded by more questions than confidence?

That’s actually most people by number.

When I think about those founders, I think about the value of their time. It’s a big theme of my upcoming book.

Founders dramatically underestimate how expensive their own time actually is.

Most people who start companies are already:

• Forgoing high-paying jobs

• Delaying financial stability

• Taking real personal risk in their prime earning years

• Raising from friends and family–folks who often aren’t nearly as wealthy as professional investors.

That’s not cheap.

And yet, I constantly meet founders who are doing something incredibly costly: spending months (or years) building in the wrong direction because they’re missing one or two critical insights that only come from someone who’s been down this road before.

Not motivational advice.

Not “you got this.”

Not vibes.

Real, direct, experience-backed feedback.

The hard part? That kind of feedback is surprisingly difficult to get.

VCs often want optionality. They don’t want to offend you. They don’t want to be the person who says, “In my experience, this argument doesn’t hold” or “I don’t think this is going to work.”

What if you figure it all out?

Friends want to be supportive. They’re rooting for you and they’re usually not in a position to evaluate your idea with real pattern recognition anyway.

So founders end up in a weird middle zone: lots of encouragement, very little truth.

That’s where I’ve started to see real value in paid, targeted conversations.

If you’re quitting your job to start a company, staying at that job two or three months longer and spending a couple thousand dollars of this additional salary you didn’t originally plan on having on the exact right high-level feedback from the exact right person can be a fantastic trade if you don’t already have access to these networks.

This way, you get your ideas challenged earlier, avoid putting good money after bad ideas or you get real confirmation that you’re onto something worth pursuing

Either outcome is incredibly valuable.

That’s why I’ve decided to become an expert on Intro, which is where I’ll be directing founders who want advice.