Startups For the Rest of Us
Episode 733 | Good vs. Bad Distractions, Weaknesses vs. Blind Spots, And Everyone Struggles (A Rob Solo Adventure)
Tue, 01 Oct 2024
In episode 733, join Rob Walling for a solo adventure where he covers several topics. In this episode he differentiates between good and bad distractions, weaknesses versus blind spots, and shares personal experiences of struggle. He concludes with actionable advice – uncover the blind spots, then launch, iterate, and take feedback. Topics we cover: 2:09 – Not all distractions are bad 5:42 – The worst distractions masquerade as productivity 9:48 – Weaknesses versus blind spots 16:41 – Everybody struggles 24:40 – Launch, iterate, and take feedback Links from the Show: The SaaS Launchpad The SaaS Playbook MicroConf Connect The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books by Rob Walling Traction by Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares Episode 725 | SEO in the Age of AI, Freemium, When Brand Becomes Important, and More Advanced Listener Questions (with Ruben Gamez) Launch. A Startup Documentary. If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify
Full Episode
And I had this epiphany on the spot, and I'd never said this before. I said, weaknesses are fine. We all have strengths and weaknesses. You don't want blind spots. A blind spot is a weakness that you're not aware of. When you have a weakness and you know about it, you can work around it. If you're the founder who bounces from one thing to the next to the next,
who follows each distraction, and you realize, you know what? I'm never going to focus on anything long enough to build something great, then you can acknowledge that weakness and stick with things longer than you think you should. But if you're not aware of it, how can you work around it? another episode of Startups for the Rest of Us. As always, I'm your host, Rob Walling.
This week, I'm flying solo. As I talk through a few topics I've been mulling over these past few weeks and months. The first one is going to be about distractions, good distractions, bad distractions, micro macro, and talking about how to avoid the ones that will derail your plans. I also want to talk about weaknesses versus blind spots.
I want to look at how everyone, even the successful founders around you, struggle. And then if we have time, I'm going to cover a topic about how you don't have to be right all the time. In fact, you don't even need to be right the vast majority of the time to be successful. Before I dive into the topics, if you haven't picked up a copy of the SaaS Playbook, it has sold just about 30,000 copies.
I actually haven't run the numbers in about a month, and last I checked, it was at about 29,000. The book is selling really well, and the reviews and ratings and comments, both on xTwitter, Amazon, and other places, are really encouraging, and it seems the book is resonating with a lot of people. If you haven't picked it up, sasplaybook.com or you can get it on Amazon or Audible.
If you have picked it up, I would love it if you'd leave me a five-star review on Amazon or Audible. That helps people find the book and it helps people gauge whether it's going to be helpful for them. And with that, let's dive in to my first topic about distractions. I was going to title this segment, How to Stay Focused, even when there are things around you that you'd prefer to be doing.
What I realized is all distractions are not bad. So I have a couple dichotomies in this section that I want to talk through. The first is I do think there are quote-unquote good distractions. There are distractions that help your mental health. There are distractions that make you happy. There are distractions that have long-term benefits that that might distract you from your goals.
Your goal is to launch a company or build a company to 5, 10, 15 million, wherever you're going. And a quote unquote distraction is anything that maybe you have to spend time doing that isn't that. And examples of good distractions are going outside, going for a walk. working out, spending time with your family, your kids.
Now, you might be saying, Rob, spending time with my family, my kids, my spouse, that's not a distraction. It's not. I don't view it as that in my worldview per se. But if we're looking at a technical definition of your goal is to do X, anything that isn't getting there is, you know, you could phrase it as a distraction from that.
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