Your job is to try things.

To create a little chaos.

Sometimes it can be annoying, especially to your team. “There goes Matt again, another new idea and more change!”

Ignore the pushback, it is normal. People hate change. They crave safety and clarity.

But you’re the leader.

Your job is to create movement and in young businesses that movement usually comes from trying new things, even if those things seem a little crazy.

The reason you want movement? Because movement creates more information.

You’ve probably heard of feedback loops.

That’s what you’re going for.

I know many operators who want to build systems for everything. The allure of automation is a distraction in early stage companies.

Too much process too early in a business will destroy that business. It might not break right away or all at once, but it will break.

Young businesses thrive on creativity. They need the feedback loop from throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.

If you over-system your company at too young a stage you’ll drive out the people who really build companies.

I’ve seen this first hand too many times to count.

It’s the dangerous side of traction. When we get traction, especially early traction, we think it’s time to scale it up. And scale usually means repeatable. Repeatable means…systems! Process!

This is one of the hardest parts of building a business.

Identifying when something is truly repeatable and ready to scale vertically without a whole lot more lateral movement (aka - pivoting / adapting).

I’ve seen beautiful, profitable companies with less than $5 million in revenue have things so automated the founder does barely anything.

I’ve also seen wonderful $50 million businesses try and automate things and totally destroy momentum because they were too early in doing so.

I believe the better default is to create a culture that isn’t afraid to try things, to want constant feedback loops that enable better decision making.

It’s in that decision making you find momentum.

Don’t wait until you lose momentum to try something new. That’s doing business on hard-mode.

If you never stop experimenting, you’ll be ready for those moments when momentum slows.

Movement creates information.

Information fuels creativity.

Creativity sparks momentum.

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Onward,

Matt

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready there are 3 ways I can help you…

1 - Go listen to The Operators Podcast. 4 co-hosts with bigger companies all jamming on real business problems.

2 - Coaching/Advising - VERY rarely I open my calendar up to do 1on1 advisory/coaching work with others. If you're interested you need to reply to this email with "interested". I'll send you info/options.

3 - The Briefing ($25/mo.) - Want a behind the scenes look at how I run my companies? Twice a month I release a special issue email giving you a look at how I do my day job (CEO). These are my playbooks. My experience. The last issue was a detailed playbook on how to run an EA (Assistant).