In my first startup, I outsourced my product development to a small IT services company. In the beginning, things seemed okay.
But soon, I was struggling with product-market fit (aka, nobody wanted my product). Instead of staying laser-focused on solving that problem, I started thinking, “I am paying these engineers anyway, so I can’t let them sit idle and waste my money. Let me give them some work.”
I ended up adding more features to the product to keep my engineers busy, which cluttered my product — all the while ignoring my real problem. Yikes!
What if I had told the software engineers, “No work for you guys for a week. Just chill while I figure out what to do”?
Had I calmly reviewed my situation, I would have figured out a path forward or might have decided to scale down the engineering team. By letting my engineers sit idle for a week, I would have ironically saved money and time, and possibly my startup itself.
When you are unsure what work to do, the worst thing you can do is just get busy (or keep others busy). Instead, pause, reflect, and find the way forward. Yes, it will make you anxious, but that’s your goddamn job.
Anybody can be busy. But it takes guts to pause and search for the right answer.
When you are lost and directionless, random activity is your worst enemy.
– Rajan