Take the pain early, and just do it

AMF Ventures Tony Smith on pain, marketing and telepathy

Sometimes, actually most of the time, procrastination isn't a good thing.

"Take the pain early,"said Tony Fish, a venture capitalist at AMF Ventures, whom I caught up with at Mobile 2.0's cocktail party in San Francisco.  

"There are a lot of things going on in the moment and what you've got to focus on is just not over the hill, or waiting until next month," he said. "Take the pain. If you need to lose people, or reduce costs, get on and do it. Don't worry about next month. Focus on today. Get things sorted out."

Surprisingly, as many companies forgo spending on discretionary expenses, such as marketing, Fish is advising that companies do spend on that.

"There is opportunity now more than ever for entrepreneurial companies to really gain an impact, start spending focused money on marketing, getting your messages out there as well as your services," he said. 

"The lesson there is don't hang about again. Sit there and work out what you want to do and how you want to do it," he said, emphatically. "Get on and do it!"

The third lesson he shared was about how to work as a team.

"More than ever you have to have a team that you trust. A team that you can send off in different directions particularly as a CEO," he said. "Address politics out of the team as soon as possible. Get the team sorted and build a cohesive unit that works almost by telepathic means which is really going to build the base."