Lenny Distilled

Hard choices now prevent harder problems later

Craft → Decision Making

Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life. I often find that anytime that I'm making the easy choice, my life gets hard. And when I make the hard choice to shut down the business, fire the person, say bye to a project that I was excited about, it's almost always the right choice.

Andrew WilkinsonI've run 75+ businesses. Here's why you're probably chasing the wrong idea.
Supporting

I would say wait until it hurts more. If the unfamiliarity is the big problem with it, then maybe the things are fine. Because it's not like this is the only way. It's more like, changing is really hard, and if there's a good reason to do it and it's like, look, we've done it the old way. We've tried different experiments. We've even already churned through a new head of product, or we've got a different CTO in and we're still having the same problems, then there comes a point where it's like, I know that this is uncomfortable, and I don't know somebody who's done it, but I think we need to try something different because we can't continue this way.

Ryan SingerA better way to plan, build, and ship products | Ryan Singer (creator of "Shape Up")
Supporting

If you do the hard path and it doesn't work, actually you still win because you've now done something hard. You've probably worked with smart people. You've learned something along the way that is valuable.

Farhan ThawarHow Shopify builds a high-intensity culture
Supporting

You should tell everyone this story... I will always come down harshly on people who do not take risks, and you did not take a risk in this case.

Farhan ThawarHow Shopify builds a high-intensity culture