Step Away to Level Up

Stepping away showed me who should be doing the work.

At my first company, when we were just 10 people, I kept my hands on everything. I tracked every process, led product, understood the codebase, and had opinions on every function.

My version of "founder mode*" was hurting us. I was a bottleneck.

Then I took my first real offline vacation. I handed off the small processes and made plans for potential problems.

When I returned, nothing had broken. The team was thriving. Those 15 daily check-ins had vanished. Everything ran smoother.

And suddenly I had time for the high-level work only I could do.

Years later, when my daughter was 9 months old and my wife traveled for work, the pattern repeated. I managed fine, and when she returned, our household seemed to function better.

Founder Mode gets praise these days, but it's unbdoubtedly a mix of positives and negatives. Anyone who embraces it without question probably suffers more drawbacks than benefits. Most founders default to excessive involvement, undermining their team's ability to execute at the highest level and ultimately at the expense of their company's success.