I see founders bleeding
Hey, if you’ve ever felt like your startup is growing slowly, despite all your late nights and hustle, like you’re bailing water from a sinking boat while still drilling more holes, you’re not alone.
Here’s the hard truth: doing more is not the same as doing better. Most founders obsess over ambitious new habits or flashy growth hacks. Meanwhile, there’s a quiet haemorrhage happening in their business, bad habits, leaky processes, pointless meetings, low-value clients, a bloated tech stack, that drains energy and focus. Quitting One Bad Habit can often lead to better results than adopting multiple good ones. By focusing on this, you can stop the drain on your resources.
What I’ve learned (and seen in dozens of first-time founders I’ve worked with) is this: quitting your worst habit often shifts your trajectory faster than starting your best one. Let’s break down why, and how you can do this ASAP.
1. Why stopping the bad matters more than starting the good
Lean your business to win
Fixing things that are broken, cutting out bad habits, yields immediate gains, while building new habits pays off slowly. In habit science, breaking negative loops is more effective than trying to build positive ones on top of leaky foundations. For individuals, research shows that replacing bad behaviors is more effective than just focusing on new ones.
The same applies in business. Strategyzer lists bad habit #1 of companies killing their innovation engine: “The current business model dominates the agenda.” They advise removing rigid routines that stifle new ideas.
The Icarus paradox: where success becomes your downfall
Many successful companies fail because they keep doing what worked in the past, even when the world has changed. That’s the Icarus Paradox : your greatest strengths can become your doom if you don’t adapt. Recognizing and quitting destructive habits is the only way to survive that fall.
Avoid the trap of “more, but not better”
McKinsey on hidden flaws in strategy points out that decision-makers often cling to flawed strategies due to cognitive biases, even when signs suggest change is needed.
That’s a fancy way of saying: your brain wants to repeat yesterday’s moves, even if they’re failing today.
2. A Framework to “Quit First, Fix Fast”
Here’s how to systematically identify what’s killing your momentum and eliminate it, before stacking on new habits.
Step 1: Inventory the leaks
List areas where you’re wasting time, money, or focus. Examples:
- Meetings you never actually use for decisions
- Customer segments that churn at 80%
- Marketing channels you’re not tracking ROI on
- Features in your product nobody uses
Use metrics where possible. If you have weekly standups with 5 people and zero outcomes, that’s a leak.
Step 2: Rank by impact
Rank these leaks on two axes:
- Impact: How much does this cost you? (Time, money, morale)
- Fixability: How simple is it to stop or adjust?
Prioritize the high impact, easy to fix items.
Step 3: Kill the worst habit
Choose one leaky process or habit that fits the criteria. Announce it clearly: “Starting next Monday, we’re nixing our sprint planning retrospective, it’s adding zero value.” Be explicit.
Step 4: Measure change
Track metrics even for stopping something. You stopped the stand-up? Check if decision speed improved. You dropped a low-value client? See how morale or cash flow shifts.
Step 5: Once the leak is closed, think about what to build next
Once you stop the worst leak, you’ll find space to build something better. Maybe a weekly high-impact retrospection. But don’t rush. Let the immediate gains settle first.
3. Real-world founder moves (examples from the Nomad Foundr community)
Example A: One founder was burning 10 hours weekly on unstructured “all-team syncs” that produced no outcomes. We replaced them with a biweekly focused leadership sync (30 min) plus another optional Q&A async channel. They reclaimed 20 hours a month and reduced feature freeze cycles by 25%.
Example B: Another slipped into discounting deeply from the start to “buy customers,” bleeding margin. Identified the worst leak: discount-first approach. After stopping it, they raised prices modestly and improved customer quality; CAC dropped 40%, retention grew.
4. Why this works, backed by evidence
- Focusing on elimination multiplies freedom
- By removing the largest friction, you free energy for things that matter. Fail-fast cultures encourage cutting bad paths early.
- Cognitive load drops
- Behavioral science shows our brains are wired to repeat patterns but struggle to adopt new ones under clutter. Remove routines that activate autopilot.
- Better decisions, faster
- Without leaks, information flows faster, morale is higher, decisions feel sharper. That confidence to act kills hesitation, which Ben Horowitz calls the “worst thing” a leader can do.
5. What you do ASAP: Actionable steps
| Time | Action |
|---|---|
| Today | Write down 3 things your startup is doing that feel stupid as hell. |
| This week | Rank them by impact + ease of stopping. Choose the top one and kill it. |
| Next week | Monitor one metric to see the effect—time saved, morale lift, decision speed. |
| After | Celebrate the win, then ask: “Now, what new habit can fill this clean space?” |
Conclusion: Stop leaking, then start dreaming
As founders and small-business leaders, we rarely stop to ask: “What are we doing that’s just stupid, and needs to go?” We default to addition, new features, new hires, new habits.
Let’s flip that. Let’s clean house first. When you cut that one bad habit, the results happen fast. Confidence rises, clarity emerges, and momentum follows. Once you’ve stopped the leak, that’s when you build the next big habit that matters.
Try it. Pick your worst habit right now and quit it. Then tell me what you see.
