Startups are a rollercoaster ride – every time you make it over one hump (hiring the first employee, fundraising, launching an alpha, etc.) you will suddenly see the next, new challenge looming on the horizon.  You need to stay focused on the challenge.

As a founder or CEO, you should be constantly asking yourself what is the single more important thing you should be doing for the company at any given period of time.  And then you should focus most of your time on that.  A good exercise to try:

1. Once a week, take a step back and ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish, and what are the 1-2 most important things that will get you there.
2. Every morning, make a list of the 1-3 things you absolutely need to get done that day.  
3. Get those things done.
4. Don’t get distracted by the easy low hanging fruit that doesn’t matter – it just wastes your time even if you get satisfaction by doing it.

In parallel to the spot roles you are playing (e.g. CMO, VP sales, whatever), the two most consistently important jobs for the CEO of a startup on an ongoing basis are:
1. Make sure you do not run out of money.  People seem to forget that running out of money is the #1 reasons startups fail. 
2. Hiring and firing.  As CEO, you constantly need to be hiring  the best possible people, and letting underperformers go.

Read the rest of this blog post here.

Daniel Fung (@RTcollector) took me (@hypercasey) to The Network Hub – a co-workspace in downtown Vancouver.

Similar to what we have at BootHK, The Network Hub is a 3,500-square feet space that has offices for start-ups as well as hot desks for shorter term work. CAN$5/HK$40 an hour or $30/$240 a day are the standard rates including WiFi and meeting space.

The space is awesome! Its huge and stylish and a perfect place to work in the heart of the downtown area which is also the epicenter for Vancouver’s start-ups scene. Coffee shops are all around and we hit up the Bean Around the World down the block which equates to a Palo Alto deal-making cafe.

They are on the Coworking Visa wiki with BootHK so that allows us 3 free days of workspace when visiting Vancouver. As Daniel and I are Vancouver natives we are both shocked and happy to see such a cool place set-up for start-ups. 

More info here: www.thenetworkhub.ca

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