You know that moment when you’re staring at your business plan and realizing that everything you thought would work… might not? That’s where most founders find themselves, usually around month three or four. The gap between what you imagined and what’s actually happening is where real learning begins. Today, I want to talk about the kind of decisions that separate businesses that survive from ones that don’t—and it all starts with understanding what your venture actually needs right now, not six months from now.
Building a business is like sailing without a map. You’ve got a direction, sure, but the winds shift, the currents pull you sideways, and sometimes you realize you’re heading toward rocks you didn’t see coming. The founders I’ve worked with who’ve made it through the rough patches weren’t necessarily the smartest or the luckiest—they were the ones who stayed obsessively focused on what mattered and weren’t afraid to change course when the data told them to.
Understanding Your Core Business Fundamentals
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most ventures fail because founders get distracted. They’re chasing every shiny opportunity, pivoting based on feedback from one customer, or building features nobody asked for. Before you can make smart decisions about anything else, you need to get crystal clear on what your business actually does and why people care.
When I say “fundamentals,” I mean the stuff that sounds boring but keeps you alive: your unit economics, your customer acquisition cost, your retention rate. These aren’t just numbers for a spreadsheet—they’re signals telling you whether your business model actually works. If you don’t know these numbers cold, you’re flying blind.
The first question to ask yourself is simple: can I make money doing this? Not “will I make money eventually”—can you, right now, sell something for more than it costs you to deliver? If the answer is no, you’ve got a problem that more funding won’t fix. I’ve seen founders raise millions, spend it all, and still have a business that doesn’t work. The money just delays the reckoning.
Start by mapping out your revenue streams. Be honest about what’s actually generating income versus what’s just a nice-to-have. One founder I worked with was spending 60% of her time on a service that brought in 10% of revenue. Once she saw that clearly, the decision was easy—cut it or delegate it. That freed her up to focus on what actually moved the needle.
The Cash Flow Reality Check
Cash flow is the oxygen of any business. You can be profitable on paper and still go under if you run out of cash. This is especially brutal for ventures that have growth potential but need to spend money upfront—like SaaS companies, inventory-based businesses, or service agencies scaling up.
Here’s what I tell founders: model your cash flow month by month for the next 18 months. Not revenue—cash. When do customers actually pay you? When do you have to pay suppliers? When do you have to make payroll? The gap between these dates is where most ventures get crushed.
I worked with an e-commerce founder who was growing like crazy—30% month-over-month. But she was running out of cash because she had to pay manufacturers 30 days before customers paid her. She needed capital just to keep growing. Once she understood that, we could make a real decision about whether to raise money, negotiate better payment terms with suppliers, or slow growth to match her cash position. Without that clarity, she was just guessing.
The practical move: build a simple spreadsheet with your best estimates of cash in and cash out for the next 18 months. Update it monthly with actual numbers. This becomes your north star for decisions about hiring, spending, and whether you need to fundraise. If you’re not doing this, start today. It takes a few hours and could save your business.
Building a Sustainable Growth Model
Growth for growth’s sake is a trap. I’ve watched ventures burn through capital chasing vanity metrics while their unit economics got worse with every new customer. Real growth is when you’re getting more efficient at acquiring customers and keeping them, not just spending more to acquire more.
This is where Y Combinator’s advice on growth becomes invaluable—focus on doing things that don’t scale first. Get close to your customers. Understand what makes them tick. Before you build a marketing machine, you need to know what you’re trying to scale.
The question isn’t “how do we grow?” It’s “what lever, when pulled, creates sustainable growth without destroying our unit economics?” Maybe it’s improving your product so customers stick around longer. Maybe it’s finding a more efficient channel to reach customers. Maybe it’s increasing price because you’re undervalued.
One founder I know was acquiring customers at a cost that made sense if they stuck around for a year. But her churn was killing her—customers left after three months. She was running faster and faster just to stay in place. The answer wasn’t to acquire more customers; it was to fix retention. Once she did that, growth became easy because the unit economics finally worked.
Build your growth model on a foundation that actually works, then scale it. Too many founders skip the foundation and wonder why scaling breaks everything.
Team Decisions That Actually Matter
Your team is the multiplier on everything else you do. Get the team wrong and all the strategy in the world won’t save you. Get it right and mediocre strategy can still succeed because you’ve got people who’ll figure it out and execute.
The early hiring decisions are the hardest and most important. You’re probably going to hire slowly at first, which means every person shapes the culture and capability of the company. This isn’t the time to settle or hire quickly just to fill seats.
I’ve seen founders make two opposite mistakes: hiring too slowly and missing opportunities, or hiring too fast and building a team that doesn’t fit. The key is being intentional. What skills do you actually need right now? What can you do yourself? What’s worth bringing in help for?
One founder I worked with knew she was bad at operations but great at sales. Instead of hiring a second salesperson (which felt urgent), she brought in an operations person to systematize what she was doing. That person freed up 10 hours a week that she redirected to sales. The force multiplier was huge. She made a decision based on where the constraint actually was, not where it felt most painful.
Also, be honest about your own weaknesses. If you’re not a detail person and you’re trying to run a compliance-heavy business, you’re going to struggle. Either get better, hire for it, or pick a different business. Don’t pretend your weaknesses don’t matter—they do, and they’ll eventually tank you.
As you think about building your team, remember that Harvard Business Review’s research on hiring consistently shows that cultural fit and coachability matter more than raw talent in early-stage ventures. You can teach skills; you can’t teach someone to care.
Making Strategic Pivots Without Losing Your Way
Every founder faces moments where the original plan isn’t working. The question is: how do you know when to pivot versus when to push through?
Here’s the hard part: there’s no formula. But there are signals. If you’re not getting traction after a reasonable amount of effort, if customers are telling you something different from what you thought, if the market is telling you a different story than your plan—those are times to listen.
The key is making pivots from a place of information, not desperation. You’re noticing that customers care more about feature X than feature Y, so you double down on X. You’re seeing that your target customer isn’t who you thought, so you adjust. That’s a pivot based on learning. That’s different from panicking and changing everything because one investor said your idea won’t work.
I watched a founder spend six months building a B2B product when she kept getting inbound interest from consumers. She was attached to her original idea, but the market was literally trying to tell her something. When she finally listened and pivoted to B2C, everything clicked. Same product, different customer, completely different trajectory.
The hard part is knowing when you’re being smart about pivoting versus when you’re just being reactive. My rule of thumb: pivot when you have data and learning to guide you. Don’t pivot because you’re scared or because one person gave you feedback. Pivot because you see a pattern and an opportunity.
And here’s the thing about pivots that nobody tells you: they’re exhausting. Your team gets tired. Investors get nervous. You start doubting yourself. But sometimes it’s the difference between a business that works and one that doesn’t. Stay honest with your data and trust your instincts.
Measuring What Counts
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. But you also can’t drown in metrics. The trick is figuring out what actually matters for your business and obsessing over those numbers.
For most ventures, there are maybe three to five metrics that tell you whether you’re winning or losing. Everything else is noise. Figure out what those are for your business and track them religiously.
For a SaaS company, it might be monthly recurring revenue, churn rate, and customer acquisition cost. For a marketplace, it might be supply-side engagement, demand-side engagement, and transaction volume. For a consumer app, it might be daily active users, session length, and retention. Pick the ones that actually matter and build your decision-making around them.
One thing I see founders get wrong is confusing activity with progress. They’re shipping features, hitting sales calls, raising money—all activity. But if none of that’s moving your core metrics, you’re just busy. Stay disciplined about what you measure and why.
According to SBA resources on business metrics, small businesses that track key performance indicators consistently outperform those that don’t. It’s not complicated—just disciplined.
Create a simple dashboard you look at weekly. If you’re a solo founder, it might be five numbers on a spreadsheet. If you’ve got a team, it might be a shared dashboard everyone sees. The point is making your metrics visible and using them to drive decisions. This becomes your feedback loop, and feedback loops are what separate businesses that learn from ones that repeat the same mistakes.
FAQ
How often should I revisit my business model?
At minimum, monthly. When you’re early, weekly is better. You’re looking for signals that your assumptions are holding up or need adjustment. Don’t wait for quarterly reviews—by then you’ve lost months of learning. Build the habit of looking at your numbers weekly and asking: what changed? What does it mean?
What if I don’t have a team yet—can I still make these decisions?
Absolutely. In fact, as a solo founder, these decisions are even more critical because you’re the only one executing. You don’t have the luxury of waiting for consensus or delegating. Know your numbers, understand your constraints, and be ruthless about priorities. Solo founders who win are usually the ones who focus ferociously on the few things that matter.
How much should I spend on customer acquisition?
However much makes sense given your unit economics. If a customer is worth $1,000 in lifetime value and you can acquire them for $200, that’s a good deal. If you’re spending $800 to acquire a $1,000 customer, you’re in trouble. The key is knowing your numbers and making decisions from there. There’s no universal rule—it’s all about your specific business.
When should I raise money?
When you’ve proven something works and you need capital to scale it. Not before. Too many founders raise money because they think they’re supposed to or because an investor showed interest. Raise when you have a clear use for the money and you’ve validated that the money will help you win. Otherwise, you’re just diluting yourself and adding pressure you might not need.
How do I know if my business will work?
You’ll know through building it and paying attention. There’s no shortcut. You’ll see it in the numbers—customer acquisition cost, retention, revenue growth. You’ll see it in customer behavior—whether they’re excited or tolerating you. You’ll see it in your own energy—whether you’re energized by the problem or just grinding. Trust the data, listen to customers, and be honest with yourself about what you’re seeing.
