John is the founder of MarsX Inc, the 'Operating System' for software development. He has built 20+ products and scaled to 10M+ users on b2b2c with $2M+ ARR.
Guest Author: John Rush
An idiot admires complexity.
A genius admires simplicity.
Because complexity isn’t an asset, it’s your liability.
All my simplicity hacks:
1. Solo teams.
One person – one task. No meetings, no discussions, no arguments, no drama.
2. Google Sheets.
The simplest & most powerful human invention. I use it for accounting, planning, documentation, backend, and database.
It’s easy to use, share, edit, clone, automate.
3. Less features.
I don’t copy an existing tool & add more features on top of it. Most products are difficult to use because they have too many features for too many audiences.
I pick one audience and remove everything that is irrelevant. Often, that’s 90% of the stuff gone.
4. Multi-functional people.
I don’t have people doing just one job. My DevOps guy does support, accounting, paperwork, finances, and more.
His output is, in fact, better than what I had back in VC-funded startups with dedicated employees per job.
5. I adapt for simplicity.
For example, I use Mercury Bank because it’s simple to use.
Other banks have more financial instruments, but I’d have to spend more time setting them up and operating them.
6. My org setup is flat & simple.
I have no system. It’s me, and everyone else reports to me directly. There are no more managers.
Everything is done via Discord chat. Every “job” has a channel in Discord where we discuss it.
There are no emails or PM software. There are only chats and Google Sheets for structured data.
7. I have zero employees.
Only contractors. So that I don’t have to bother with all the paperwork, their holiday pay, and other stuff.
8. I work from home.
No office to rent and maintain.
9. Simple websites.
All my websites have very simple landing pages made using @unicornplatform.
I spent less than an hour making them. I’ve never made an advanced website with fancy animations and flashy elements.
It’s the #1 procrastination trap 90% of founders fall into. My simple websites bring hundreds of thousands in sales, while those fancy sites sit on zeros.
10. Simple products.
I never spend time making custom designs. Design isn’t how the product looks!
Design is how the product works, so I put a lot of effort into UX but never into UI. I copy the existing patterns and use random popular UI libraries and default colors.
11. I only hire when it hurts.
More people = More liabilities.
Find them, screen them, onboard them, and ensure they’re happy and know what to do, among other things.
I either do new tasks myself or throw them onto existing team members until it really hurts and I have to add one more person. I don’t think there is a more effective organization on earth today than my org.
12. I buy my time back.
I don’t waste my time doing things I can pay for. So many founders spend days doing things they could pay $ for. Time is your key asset. Save it at all costs.
13. NoCode vs High Code.
I’m a coder; I know Assembler, C++, Delphi, PHP, ASP, C#, JS, TS, Python, NextJS, and more.
But I still go for NoCode SaaS for most of my MVPs. Because I’m not falling for “I can code this one on a weekend..”.
The key advantage of NoCode comes after release when I have to iterate fast.
14. Avoid obstacles.
I avoid everything that may turn into a never-ending mess. Despite the common belief that founders must be brave at taking challenges, I actually avoid challenges.
My goal is to be like a river that finds the easiest possible path forward towards the sea.
I do take my battles, but I choose them wisely. That’s it. What’s your productivity or simplicity hack?
Check out the original tweet here.
