Productize & Scale - Build an engine not a job

Do you know the real reason why most productized services and startups fail?

Burnout.

The ongoing workload becomes too overwhelming before the results from that work have a chance to materialize.

For bootstrapped startups, this is especially true—even more so when it’s your first venture, the one you hope will break you free of consulting or your day job. Your biggest hurdle isn’t competition or finding the right idea, or building your product. It’s burnout.

Working on your startup is not like working on a project for a client. In a client project, you’re checking tasks off the list of things you’ve agreed to deliver. But in your startup, you’re building an engine. Actually, you’re building lots of little engines. First, you build the gears, and then you connect them together, then you give them the juice to keep running. Then you can walk away and start working on the next little engine. Eventually, all these little engines form the ship that can move faster and go farther.

👉 How to build an engine not a job

Is it possible to build a productized service without hiring any full-time team members? It turns out at least one entrepreneur has figured out how to do this.

Some curated reads to share on Twitter or in your team Slack channel. We're always looking for helpful or inspirational finds on marketing, growth, and and awesome wins from members of our community (you!).