A Smart Bear · Jason Cohen
articleprincipleWhat is the value of one hour of a startup founder's time?
19 July 2026Profit
Source excerpt
About A Smart BearStartup founders undervalue their time. Here's why you should act like it's $1000/hr, and how it changes the decisions you make.
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Apollo layer
What a founder can learn
Founder takeaway
Treat founder time as a scarce, high-value resource—not as free labor. Using a $1,000-per-hour benchmark can expose work that should be eliminated, delegated, automated, or postponed so you can focus on decisions and activities with greater leverage.
Why it matters
A founder’s low-leverage workload creates hidden opportunity costs and can make the company dependent on their constant involvement. Valuing time explicitly improves prioritization and encourages systems that scale beyond the founder.
Relevant guides
Put it to work
Review next week’s calendar and ask of each commitment: “Would I knowingly spend $1,000 of founder time on this?” Remove, delegate, automate, or shorten anything that fails the test.