The most expensive thing a founder does with a developer is not the hourly rate.

I have been the developer founders hire, for five years. The thing that costs them most is not my rate.

It is arriving with a solution instead of a problem. Someone asks for a screen that does a specific thing. I build exactly that. It works. It gets approved. And it does not fix anything, because the real problem was somewhere else in the flow.

The cheaper conversation starts with what your user cannot do today. Say that, and let the developer propose the screen. Most of the time the answer is smaller than the one you were about to pay for.

For the founders here: what did you ask a developer for that you would word differently now?