The Art of War meets the Art of Start?

A new to me (but seven years old to more diligent readers) post from Joel on Software made a great comparison between military and startup strategy…basically - survival’s all about Fire and Motion.

In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards the enemy while firing your weapon…The motion allows you to conquer territory and get closer to your enemy (or goal), where your shots are much more likely to hit their target.

It took me another fifteen years to realize that the principle of Fire and Motion is how you get things done in life. Fire and Motion, for small companies, means two things. You have to have time on your side, and you have to move forward every day. Sooner or later you will win.

With so much to be done, I’ve often struggled with making even the slightest daily progress. And, when you only have 1 or 2 hours per day to work on the startup, it can be hard to tell if the work you’re doing can be counted as progress at all.

For example - does taking the time to blog, tweet, and build up a network and raise awareness really count as moving forward? I’m struggling to find the right analogy, because while sometimes raised awareness is what you need to move forward, other times it sure can look and feel like running in place. How do you balance your Fire and Motion?