The Founder of a $3 Billion Startup Says Most Entrepreneurs Fail to Delegate—But It Can Be a Superpower

Jonathan Swanson knows that building a billion-dollar business isn’t something you can do on your own. In the past 16 years, Swanson has founded two fast-growing startups: San Francisco-based Thumbtack, a home-services marketplace with a valuation of over $3 billion, and his most recent venture, San Juan, Puerto Rico-based Athena, a platform that pairs leaders with personal assistants. One of the keys to his success as a business owner has been knowing when and how to delegate tasks, he explained on a recent edition of the a16z podcast.

The most valuable resource a founder has is time, says Swanson, and by offloading some responsibilities (and distractions) to other team members, you’re better able to focus on growing the business.

On the podcast, Swanson discussed ways to delegate more efficiently, whether it’s having an assistant handle your inbox or empowering an employee to oversee a more critical task.

Focus on long term gains

Odds are you can, in fact, do whatever task you’re thinking of faster or better. You, after all, know exactly how you want it handled. But that’s the cardinal sin of delegating, Swanson says. Over the long term, delegating will get the task done as you expect it to be—and free up your schedule.

“It will actually be faster or better if you do it yourself that first time,” he says. “And it takes more effort to delegate, to teach someone how to do it. It might not be as fast or as good as you’d like it, but the only way you get leverage is by going through that work.”

Don’t wait to delegate

In the early stages of a startup, founders might resist the need to hire an assistant when they’re on a shoestring budget. Swanson says that’s a mistake. If you can’t afford a human assistant to delegate tasks to, there are plenty of budget options for delegation.

“If you don’t have an assistant, you are the assistant. And you don’t want to be the assistant,” he says. “If you’ve got 20 bucks a month, use ChatGPT. If you’ve got 10 bucks an hour, go on to Upwork and hire someone yourself. And if you hire someone yourself, my main recommendation is you need to interview a lot of people.”