After working with data and business owners for over 10 years, one thing has become crystal clear to me:
The biggest risk for a business is not making decisions.
We are all scared of making the wrong choice – whether it’s the “wrong” channel, “wrong” pricing, or “wrong” hire. And because we’re afraid, we end up spending months – sometimes years – just talking about these decisions. And that’s when the business starts to stagnate.
A business that makes decisions quickly grows. A business that gets stuck in indecision? Well, that one slowly dies. Not loudly, but steadily. And we all know that slow death is the worst kind.
My Personal Example: How We Got Stuck in Choosing a Growth Channel
Let me tell you about one of my personal lessons learned in 2025.
We were deciding on our next key growth channel. A strategic decision that would shape our growth for the next 12-18 months.
Here’s what we did:
- Gathered arguments for and against;
- Discussed the options;
- Compared case studies from others;
- Came back to it during our calls;
- And yet, no real tests were done.
Typical phrases that went around the table:
- “We need to think some more.”
- “Let’s check out a few more options.”
- “What if we’re missing out on some better channel?”
Eventually, I caught myself realising we were spending three months talking about a decision that could have been tested in 4-6 weeks with small, focused experiments.
Once we stopped “thinking” and started trying — running just 2-3 simple tests — it became clear:
- One channel didn’t work.
- Another one was too expensive.
- The third one gave us a decent LTV at a reasonable cost per acquisition.
We found what we needed, not because we “came up with the perfect answer,” but because we stopped getting stuck and started making decisions through action.
The mistake wasn’t in choosing the “wrong” channel. It was in not choosing at all for months.
The Myth of the “Perfect Decision”
A lot of business owners, especially in the startup world, hold onto this unspoken belief:
- Find the one right market with no competition;
- Come up with the one unique product;
- Make one genius strategic decision, and then boom — business takes off.
But the real path to success is much more messy and incremental.
Business growth doesn’t come from one perfect decision. It comes from hundreds of “good enough” decisions, made in a timely manner.
Currently, we’re doing research on technology and product companies: SaaS, subscription services, and e-commerce. We’re looking at what decisions are made at different stages of company maturity and where companies most often get stuck.
From what we’ve observed:
- About 70% of decisions within an industry are the same across all players;
- Most of those decisions are repeated across companies almost unchanged;
- Roughly half of all decisions are universal – the same decisions are made by almost every business.
To reach $10M in revenue, companies need to make:
- dozens of strategic decisions (market, positioning, sales models);
- hundreds of tactical ones (which channels, which products, which customer segments);
- thousands of operational ones (who does what, when, and how).
None of them are genius decisions. They’re all pretty basic.
The problem isn’t that we don’t have “genius moves” to make. The problem is that we fail to make those decisions on time and drag them from quarter to quarter.
The Three Levels of Decisions — and the Three Levels of Getting Stuck
If we simplify things, business decisions can be broken down into three levels:
Strategic — where we’re going
- Which market and segment are we working in?
- What business model are we choosing (service, subscription, product)?
- Who do we target: SMB, mid-market, enterprise?
How it looks when you’re stuck:
- “We’re kind of a SaaS, but also a consultancy, and sometimes we do agency work.”
- “We have clients in the US, Europe, and ‘wherever they come from.’”
- “We don’t want to narrow down to just one industry.”
Price of getting stuck: Diluted focus, weak brand, average profitability across everything.
Tactical — how we grow
- Which sales and marketing channels are we prioritising?
- Which products and pricing plans are we keeping?
- Which customer segments are we targeting?
How it looks when you’re stuck:
- Channels are “half-done,” none of them have been taken to a clear unit-economics level.
- Old products haven’t been shut down, new ones haven’t been launched properly.
- Pricing is “on the fly,” and nothing’s been tested.
Operational — how we operate daily
- Who do we hire next?
- How do we structure onboarding?
- How do we track KPIs, bonuses, and performance?
How it looks when you’re stuck:
- Vacancies sit open for months without decisions.
- Processes that were “in progress” have been dragging on for a year.
- Employees don’t understand what the company prioritises right now because there are too many competing priorities.
The most dangerous thing at every level is not making the wrong decision. It’s leaving it open and unresolved.
The Two Layers of Decision-Making: Organizational and Personal
Business decisions always have two layers:
- The Organizational, Business Layer
- Should we hire the first Head of Sales or continue selling ourselves?
- Should we close an unprofitable division or “keep it alive for another quarter”?
- Should we hand over customer success to a dedicated team, or keep it “spread out across everyone”?
- The Personal Transformation Layer
- Am I ready to stop controlling everything myself?
- Am I ready to admit that our current business model is no longer working?
- Am I ready to see myself as more than just the “senior specialist” but as the true leader of the company?
Often, organizational decisions are clear, but they don’t get made because the person in charge isn’t ready personally.
Examples:
- Everyone sees the need for a strong Head of Sales, but the founder can’t let go of control. Result: hire someone weaker to avoid threat, or don’t hire anyone at all because it “feels too early.”
- Everyone knows it’s time to kill off one of the products, but the founder sees it as their “baby” and can’t bear to let go, even if that product is dragging down the company’s financial model.
From the outside, it looks like “strategic analysis.” Inside, it’s the fear of losing identity.
The Checklist for Business Owners: Are You Stuck in Your Decisions?
If you’re a business owner, here’s a quick checklist to see if you’re stuck in indecision:
- Are the same topics coming up repeatedly in strategy sessions and meetings for 6-12 months?
- Are there projects that have been “in pilot” for over a year with no decision made about whether to scale or drop them?
- Is there no one person who personally owns the decision and its timeline?
- Does your calendar have no “decision date,” just “let’s discuss later”?
- Are there assumptions in your financial model that haven’t been revisited in a while?
- Does your team not understand the company’s current priorities because there are too many competing priorities?
If you check off at least three of these, it’s not a “lack of ideas” issue. You’re dealing with decision paralysis.
How Analytics Helps You Break the Stalemate
Let’s use a simple analogy.
Imagine you’re driving in a new city, trying to get from point A to point B.
- You roughly know where you’re going.
- At every intersection, you need to decide whether to go straight, turn, or take a different path.
- You could just keep going straight, but most likely, you’ll end up lost.
The most inefficient thing? Not “turning the wrong way.”
The most inefficient thing is stopping at the intersection, unsure of which turn to take.
Now, let’s add analytics into the mix:
- No analytics = driving blind.
- You guess where you are and where you’re going: “Feels like our margin is fine,” “This channel seems to be working.”
- The cost of mistakes is high because you only realise you’re off track after wasting a lot of time and money.
- Average analytics = tracking performance after the fact.
- You can tell “we’re off track,” but it’s too late to fix it.
- You’re making decisions too late, and you miss opportunities for proactive change.
- Strong analytics = navigating with a GPS.
- You know where you are and where you need to go.
- You get real-time alerts on areas like “margin dropping here” or “customer churn increasing,” and you can make decisions instantly.
Good analytics doesn’t make decisions for you. It helps you make better, faster decisions and reduces the cost of mistakes.
How to Break the Stalemate: A Simple Framework
Here’s a straightforward approach that I use myself and apply with clients:
- List the stuck decisions — Write down all the major decisions that have been “hanging” for over 1-2 months (market, product, channel, hire, shutting down divisions, etc.).
- Assign a decision owner — Every decision should have one responsible person.
- Set a deadline — No “someday” decisions. Mark a date in your calendar: “By March 15th, we make a decision about X, even if it’s not perfect.”
- Minimal data set — Don’t wait for perfect analytics. Identify 3-5 key metrics and 1-2 reports to make a good enough decision.
- Version 1.0 + Review Point — Every decision is a hypothesis:
- “We do X for the next 3 months”
- “After 12 weeks, we check metrics and decide: keep, adjust, or drop.”
This takes away the main fear:
“If we make the wrong decision now, we’ll doom ourselves forever.”
No. You’re just making the next best decision with a clear timeline and conditions for review.
Final Thoughts: The Key to Business Growth
In the end, growing your business comes down to making timely decisions. Not always the perfect ones, but enough good enough decisions. By addressing the core issues in decision-making — both organizational and personal — and integrating strong analytics, you can avoid the trap of indecision.
And that’s the real secret to success: making decisions, learning from them, and adjusting course quickly.