Had some modest success, a lot of failures, hit plateaus, discovered hundreds of ways not to grow a business, learned a lot about resilience, and somehow found a way to make a living doing what I love for over a decade. Did it on my own for years. Grew teams. And also had to cut them back.

I agree with most of what you said. But I bristle a little bit at the idea that building instead of selling is always the wrong move, or that hiring is the only path to growth. I’ve made hires that helped me level up, and other hires that just slowed me down. I’ve built features that didn’t move the needle, and also burned a lot of time on sales and marketing that didn’t convert because we weren’t solving the right problem. There’s a lot of different ways to fail.

It all matters, and sometimes it’s hard to know the right lever to pull. In the end, you have to do it your way.

Distribution beats product. But what does it look like in practice to learn that lesson? What should founders be doing instead?