Escaping Perpetual Brokenness

A startup CEO pauses a key customer call. An urgent matter needs her attention. The DHL driver is stuck at the doorbell. She has to go down and open the door. The key customer has to wait.

This is startup life. Putting out one fire after another.

Or is it?

A scale-up co-founder told me last week: "Ten years in, it still feels like perpetual brokenness. But it is normal."

Or is it?

"Brokenness" looks like this:

• The sales pipeline is clogged, but the main server is also crashing.

• Your best engineer is rewriting legacy code instead of building the new feature.

• You spend all day handling exceptions, not setting strategy.

• Everyone is busy. Nothing important gets done.

This isn't normal. It's a symptom of surviving, not thriving.

You must address one challenge at a time.

You need a system.

The solution: Build a Problem Roadmap. Like you do with your product.

Stop the chaos. Get focused.

1. List Your Pains

First, list all the real pain points your company must solve in the next 6 months.

Get them out of your head and onto paper.

2. Assess Each Point

For every pain point you listed, ask these six questions.

Assess each dimension from 1 (Low) to 10 (High).

• Urgency: Will solving this result in a quick win?

• Impact: How significant is the impact on your business?

• Alignment: How much does this align with your company strategy?

• Complexity: Can this problem be broken into small, manageable blocks?

• Expertise: Do you have the needed expertise available immediately?

• Advantage: Will solving this give you a competitive advantage?

3. Rank Your Problems

Total the score for each problem (from 6 to 60 points).

Rank them. This is now your Problem Roadmap.

4. Execute with Focus

Do not launch initiatives to solve all of them.

Choose one. Two at the absolute maximum.

Solve it completely.

When it's done, move to the next most important problem in your Problem Roadmap. Rinse and repeat.

This is how you stop being a firefighter.

This is how you start building again.

Thank you

Philippe

P.S.1: You may take the “From Tech To Growth” self-assessment scorecard. It is free, it only takes two minutes. It offers some reflective questions and provides some customized tips based on your score.

P.S.2: Whenever you are ready, you can make a short, complementary appointment with me to discuss your business growth issues at hand. Go to Recognition Call.