So I’m cheating a bit and writing this Friday’s post on Saturday. Good thing, because a great little firestorm erupted over at TechCrunch that offers a great backdrop to my blog entry today. (It even has a nice photo of a capsizing ship to segue from yesterday’s TwiceFunded post…)

Basically, the founder of Mahalo.com posted his set of rules for launching a viable startup. He has some good thoughts, for sure, but some of what he wrote made me wince with pain at some of my own mistakes at IPI.

I could probably distill this pain into one bit-sized lesson: “Don’t mistake activity for progress.”

IPI was pretty much a collection of 20- and 30-somethings with a passion to change the world through the Web. “Great,” I would think. What more could I want?But what we had in energy and enthusiasm, we lacked in project management. I can’t even count the number of nights the core team of leaders was working late at Hoke St. to get some big project across the finish line at the 11th hour.Everyone loved this operating mode at first, because the long hours and high-profile site launches made it feel like we were really something important. But eventually, 20-somethings get girlfriends or boyfriends, and 30-somethings get married and have kids. Being at the office until midnight every night loses its charm when other personal priorities arrive on the scene.

Some of the more seasoned managers at IPI tried to warn me about life-work balance, but I’m not sure their arguments would sway me even today. These folks had survived long careers as middle- to senior(-ish) management at Fortune 500® companies, and their idea of balance was to do as little as possible personally while burning through the younger talent who had less of a “life.” I don’t think this recipe ever works.

But my advice to Mahalo would be to set aggressive, delivery-driven strategies that can be measured at fixed points in time. Then, don’t micromanage how people get across the finish line.Some people can come in early and leave early, or come in late and leave late, without affecting the rest of the team. Other people can get back online after the kids are in bed for a few hours to cue-up a productive next day for everyone.

Walking through the office and seeing everyone chained to their desk from early morning until late and night is false comfort when all’s said and done. Good people will burn out before long, and too much scrambling and panic is almost surely a sign that something is wrong with the core strategic plan.

Startups are hard work, for sure, and I always expect that everyone should be signed-up for a challenge at my companies. But I know that a creative staff will beat a mindlessly productive staff every time.

Creativity needs to breathe, and entrepreneurs need to create and foster an environment where contributions are measured in the big picture; not on the punch clock each day.