I spent a period calling myself a founder while too little of my week went toward the work I wanted to build.
For me, networking, posting, events and coffee chats had crowded out customer and product work.
Availability, fatigue and posting frequency do not tell me whether someone else is building a useful business.
Here's a question I ask myself now: If someone is at every event, on every panel, posting every day—when are they actually working?
Editorial update, October 11, 2026: The original title was “The Loudest Founders Are Usually the Emptiest.” This shorter edition centers my time-allocation lesson. Public writing, networking and being available can be part of useful work; they do not prove that a founder is empty. The 2021–2024 hours, customers and revenue figures remain author-reported historical snapshots without an underlying time log or reconciled customer ledger here. An optional audit is to record the goal and time spent on each activity, compare actual customer outcomes and obligations, then keep the mix that helps rather than aiming to become unreachable.
Maybe they've built something and now have the time. That's fair.
For my own schedule, visibility had become an easier target than useful progress.
Useful work can be public or private. I needed to look at what my own activities produced.
My Own Performance Period
2021-2022: Peak Founder Theater
I was everywhere:
- Startup events: 2-3 per month
- Coffee chats: 4-5 per week
- Twitter posting: Daily threads about founder life
- Podcast interviews: Said yes to everything
- LinkedIn articles: Weekly insights about entrepreneurship
- Panel discussions: Any topic related to startups
Hours spent on "founder activities": 25-30 per week
Hours spent actually building: 15-20 per week
SimpleDirect progress during this period: Slow. Really slow.
Revenue growth: $3K → $5K MRR over 12 months, an increase of about 66.7% from the reported starting value
The delusion: I thought networking and content were "building my business."
The reality: I was building my ego, not my company.
The Quiet Building Phase
Late 2022: Everything changed
What I stopped doing:
- Attending startup events (unless I was speaking)
- Scheduling random coffee chats
- Posting daily on Twitter
- Saying yes to every podcast
- Writing LinkedIn thought leadership
- Networking for the sake of networking
What I started doing:
- Actually coding (with AI assistance)
- Talking to customers daily
- Shipping features weekly
- Measuring what mattered
- Saying no to everything else
Hours spent on "founder activities": 2-3 per week
Hours spent actually building: 35-40 per week
SimpleDirect progress: Massive acceleration
Revenue growth: $5K → $28K MRR in 18 months
The lesson: When I stopped performing founder, I became one.
The Networking Delusion
What I had hoped networking would do:
- Leads to customers
- Attracts investors
- Finds co-founders
- Creates partnerships
- Builds reputation
Costs I noticed in my own networking schedule:
- Wastes time
- Creates obligations
- Generates busywork
- Produces low-quality connections
- Distracts from building
My networking ROI analysis:
2021-2022: High networking period
- Events attended: ~30
- Coffee chats: ~200
- Hours invested: ~400
- Customers acquired: 2
- Revenue generated: ~$2K
- Reported time per acquired customer: 400 ÷ 2 = 200 hours; a dollar cost needs an explicit hourly rate
2023-2024: Low networking period
- Events attended: ~5
- Coffee chats: ~20
- Hours invested: ~50
- Customers acquired: 47
- Revenue generated: ~$300K
- Reported time per acquired customer: 50 ÷ 47 ≈ 1.06 hours; a dollar cost needs the same explicit hourly rate
These are different reported periods, not comparable experimental groups. The figures do not establish a 25:1 causal ROI for building over networking.
The Question That Changed Everything
"If someone is at every event, on every panel, posting every day—when are they actually working?"
I began applying the question to my own schedule instead of treating it as a test of other people.
The uncomfortable answer: I wasn't working enough. I was performing too much.
The painful realization: All that networking and posting was keeping me from the thing that actually mattered—building something people wanted.
My next step: Put more time into the customer and product work I had been postponing.
What I Do Now
My current approach:
Say No To:
- Random coffee chats (95% of requests)
- Speaking at events (unless it's strategic)
- Networking events (unless customers will be there)
- Daily social media posting
- "Pick your brain" sessions
- Generic startup meetups
Say Yes To:
- Customer feedback calls (always)
- Strategic partnership discussions (rarely)
- Speaking at events where my customers are (occasionally)
- Investor meetings (when raising, which is never)
- Collaborations that lead to shipping (seldom)
The result:
- More time for actual building
- Higher quality relationships
- Better products
- Increased revenue
- Less stress
The tradeoff: I'm less visible in the startup scene. But my business is more visible in the market.