Always keeping score.
Now with Claude, there is no excuse not to be tracking everything.
How many emails did you send? Conversations this week? Outbound messages? Features you ship? Products you launch?
All of this is answerable.
Two systems that keep me accountable:
Outbound messenger
It’s part of the job to message smart people when you think they might be building something interesting. You have to chase and do the work, even though randomly messaging people isn’t always “fun” or “sexy” - and you need to have zero ego about it.
I used to have systems that would help me be more efficient with outbound, but they didn’t have end-to-end tracking. Now it’s a full workflow, and I can tell you the exact number of people contacted and the response rate.
Weekly update
Since joining the fund, I’ve sent a weekly update every Sunday to the entire team with what I accomplished, who I met with, and deals I looked at.
I’ve always thought this mattered because venture can create this illusion of being constantly “busy,” but sometimes you get to the end of the week and think: what the fuck did I actually do?
Sitting down and writing an update every Sunday - and sending the update to the team - forces me to stay honest with myself.
Outro
It means I have to show up every week and do the work I’m getting paid to do.
The weekly update is now almost completely automated. It used to be mostly manual.
And the outbound messenger is a tab I have open 100% of the time.
While I built these systems for myself, I think every company will have versions of them too - metrics to track everything - and a growing focus on productivity.
Inceasingly:
No one will be able to hide. Everything will be tracked.
Claude is always keeping score.
I’m a General Partner at Chapter One, an early-stage venture fund that invests $500K - $2M checks into pre-seed and seed-stage startups.
If you’re a founder building a company, please feel free to reach out on Twitter (@seidtweets) or Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesin-seidel-5325b147/).