> The customer support efforts when you don't feel like it, being ghosted after helping a customer, the random or fraud disputes.
These three challenges + context-switching between marketing and product are really tough at the early stage.
I've found that growing a business from 0-1 is very formulaic - not easy but the roadmap is clear. Scaling one is much harder, especially without outside capital. There's a huge gulf between earning enough to replace your salary vs. hiring good people to take over lower-level tasks early on. And marketing usually ends up being too critical to outsource at first.
At least with digital products, customer disputes can always be settled with refunds, even when the claim is dubious. Eat the loss and move on. Physical product disputes really sting when you're out the cost of inventory + labor.
These three challenges + context-switching between marketing and product are really tough at the early stage.
I've found that growing a business from 0-1 is very formulaic - not easy but the roadmap is clear. Scaling one is much harder, especially without outside capital. There's a huge gulf between earning enough to replace your salary vs. hiring good people to take over lower-level tasks early on. And marketing usually ends up being too critical to outsource at first.
At least with digital products, customer disputes can always be settled with refunds, even when the claim is dubious. Eat the loss and move on. Physical product disputes really sting when you're out the cost of inventory + labor.