Good vs. bad distractions, blind spots, and why founders don't need to be right most of the time

Executive overview

Founders face two kinds of distractions: ones that genuinely cost them progress and ones that only look like productivity. The same problem applies to personal weaknesses — a weakness you know about can be worked around; one you don't know about is a blind spot that quietly limits your ceiling.

Ask one question about every distraction: what is the cost of engaging with it, and what is the benefit? Apply the same diagnostic pressure to your own patterns — through introspection, personality tests, and honest people around you.

Recognising a blind spot is the act of eliminating it.

Good vs. bad distractions

• Not all distractions are equal — some (family, exercise, rest) have proven benefits that outweigh the cost.
• The key question for any distraction: what is the cost of engaging with it, and what is the benefit?
• Moderation is the deciding factor — an hour with family is fine; 40 hours a week on video games is not.
• Micro distractions are in-the-moment (a conversation, a hobby); macro distractions are strategic (launching a new product, translating an app).
• Macro distractions are harder to catch because the worst ones masquerade as productivity.

Distractions that masquerade as productivity

• Reading most business books feels educational but rarely improves a startup's growth rate.
• Exception: highly tactical, prescriptive books (e.g. Traction, The SaaS Playbook, EOS-style frameworks) deliver concrete strategies worth the time.
• Launching a second product before marketing the first is a distraction disguised as execution.
• Writing more code or handling support tickets instead of selling is avoiding the hard thing, not doing the necessary thing.
• Being deliberate with your time — not just busy — is what separates focused effort from productive-feeling drift.

Weaknesses vs. blind spots

• A weakness is a known limitation you can plan around.
• A blind spot is a weakness you are unaware of — and therefore cannot compensate for.
• Example: a founder who bounces between ideas can counteract that tendency once they name it; if they never name it, the pattern repeats.
• Blind spots show up when smart people around you keep giving the same feedback and nothing changes.
• Turning a blind spot into a known weakness — by naming and owning it — effectively neutralises it.

Three ways to find your blind spots

1. Introspection — ask yourself why you fail at things. Do you start without finishing? Avoid conflict? Dodge hard work like marketing or sales?
2. Personality tests — Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, StrengthsFinder, Kolbe-A. Take with a grain of salt, but useful for surfacing shadow sides of strengths.
3. People around you — co-founders, mastermind peers, a spouse. Ask directly what patterns they keep seeing. Hard to hear; high-value signal.

Everyone struggles — including the founders you admire

• Public perception of successful entrepreneurs rarely reflects their actual rate of mistakes and struggle.
• Drip plateaued at $8k/month for nine agonising months before product–market fit; overconfidence going in made it worse.
• MicroConf Local events were well-received but couldn't break even — too much travel, team burnout, and not enough local demand.
• The YouTube channel grew quickly then plateaued; knowing when to stop and redirect effort is as important as knowing when to push.
• Calculated bets that don't work out aren't failures — they're data, as long as you know when to stop and why.

You don't need to be right most of the time

• Roger Federer won 80% of his matches while winning only 54% of points.
• Successful founders don't succeed on most individual bets — they succeed because a meaningful minority of bets have asymmetric upside.
• The estimate for most successful founders: 55–65% of efforts eventually work, not 80–90%.
• Most things don't work right away — iteration, feedback, and persistence are what push the number above 50%.
• Moving fast and trying enough things matters more than being right at the outset.