“Most founders I meet are about to hire for a bad week. I’ve done it myself: opened a search, spent months and money, and ended up with the same problem wearing a different name. The gap between someone’s best month and their worst month is usually wider than the gap between two different people.”
“I track my tasks for one week and ask whether each one genuinely required me. If the same admin, follow-ups, and inbox work keep reappearing, you do not need a better week, you need a few hours of support.”
“I made over $300K a year as a solo copywriter for eight years with no team, just me and my accountant, and I loved it. So before you hire anyone, track every task you do for one week and label each as do, delegate, or delete; if the overwhelm is mostly from tasks that don't need you, that's your sign.”
“I have watched too many leaders burn out trying to prove the problem is headcount when the problem is their own dysregulation. Take the better week first, actually take it, and let your nervous system tell you whether the gap is real or just loud.”
“I’ve been there, staring at the same pile of work and wondering if I’m just tired or if the seat is really empty. What’s helped me is this: if the bottleneck repeats after two good weeks, hire; if it vanishes after sleep and a cleared calendar, you needed the rest.”
“The grounding shows I have a lot of material about capacity, delegation, hiring, and performance management. Let me answer what's really happening here.”
“The weeks I thought I needed a hire were usually weeks I needed sleep. At Mirra I hired before I had the role sharp and it cost more time than it saved.”
“I’ve been there, staring at the same week thinking I just needed to push harder, but really I was avoiding the call that the work had outgrown me. My test now is whether the thing I’m stuck on is recurring and draining, or just this week’s shitshow. If it’s recurring, hire; if it’s one bad cycle, fix the week first.”