There's a version of it at 3am with Hazel. She won't settle. Nothing you try works. You're lying there doing the maths on when the next feed is or how long you have left to sleep before you need to get up. Somewhere in the middle of it, you start to think this is just how life is now. Permanent. Like the reset button got removed.

Then morning comes. The day resets. (I know, I just said it couldn't)

Work does the same thing, sort of. A decision doesn't go your way. A relationship goes sideways and you're still not sure exactly how. Something you quietly backed stops working and there's a window where you already know it but you haven't said it out loud yet.

That happens to nearly everyone. And that's okay.

"You can't always control what happened, but you can control how long you carry it."

Just a reminder, building the wrong thing faster still gets you nowhere.

The OG meme

Anyone can write a vision statement but the hard part is making it the reason someone turns down a better offer somewhere else.

I definitely think twice about it when I'm coming up with a file name.

As the cost of writing code trends toward zero, the backlog explodes. Every feature becomes rent you have to pay.

After more than 10 years of building online products as a product person, here's what I've learned:

Everyone is making guesses. The CEO is making guesses about the vision and strategy. Salespeople are guessing what people want. Investors are making guesses about scale. You guess how big an impact it will have and what should be built next.

TAM models, the ICE framework, roadmaps and discovery sprints all sound sophisticated, but they're still just a bet.

Your mentor doesn't know if your feature will improve retention. The 'expert' on LinkedIn can't tell you if your market is big enough. You don't know if this sprint will make customers behave differently.

The only way is to keep shipping and keep the build cost low.

The best way to get alignment is for someone to own the call, make the decision, and move everyone forward. It doesn't come from talking things through forever.

Long discussions feel safe. They even feel (mistakenly) like progress. But they slow everything down. Like a slow-mo scene from The Matrix. I hate it.

Clear decisions are risky and a bit scary. But they give your team the direction it needs.

Do this If you want faster and cleaner decisions:

• End every meeting with one line: “Here's what we're doing.”
• Give every decision a single owner. No committees.
• Set a deadline to review the outcome, not to keep debating.