Don't Spend Money on Stuff that Doesn't Matter

Sometimes I see entrepreneurs spending scarce dollars on things that don't really matter to their particular business, and I wonder what they're thinking. For example, I've seen them spending lots of money designing and printing lavish business cards, and these are people who are NOT in the graphic design business. My cards were designed for free by a student at a local university, and copied at a copy center (not printed) for $65 for 200 of them. They look perfectly presentable for someone in the medical device industry.

Now I'm not saying I haven't spent some dollars in the wrong places, but this expense seems absurd to me. Any knowledgeable person I'm dealing with knows that my money is going into R&D, not business cards. One of my investors once complemented me when he noticed that the spreadsheet I was showing him had unrelated printing on the back (I recycled.) If I had whipped out a custom-designed card with an unusual shape and printing on both sides, I don't think it would have said "she'll spend my money wisely."

I write every check for every invoice, and probably will for a long time. It helps me to think long and hard about each and every expense. Think about the business you're in, and what you need to do to make an impression. If it's not in business cards, don't spend your money there.