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In the early days of starting a business, the “do-it-yourself” mindset is a survival skill. You write the code, pitch the client, manage the books and clean the office. There’s pride in wearing every hat, and sometimes, no other option.
But eventually, if you’re still doing everything yourself, you’re the bottleneck, not the solution.
One of the hardest transitions a founder has to make is letting go of being the hero. I’ve been there. I bootstrapped 46 Labs from day one. There were no investors, no parachute, no backup plan. For the first few years, I didn’t take a salary. I handled the technical architecture and the business strategy while working alongside a handful of teammates who also had skin in the game.
But here’s what I learned: scaling a company doesn’t happen when the founder works harder — it happens when the founder learns to trust and build around others. The hero-CEO model doesn’t scale. It burns out. And often, it takes the company down with it.
Related: 7 Steps to Building a Smart, High-Performing Team
Why the hero mentality fails
Being the hero can feel good, especially early on. You close the deal, solve the client issue, squash the bug and feel indispensable. But that “indispensable” feeling is dangerous. Because if you’re the only one who can solve a problem, you’ve just created a fragile system.
I’ve watched brilliant founders build businesses that revolved entirely around their abilities. They made every decision. They approved every hire. They were on every sales call. Eventually, the business outgrew its ability to control it. And instead of delegating, they worked longer hours. They held on tighter.
That works — until it doesn’t. When something breaks, the team doesn’t know how to respond. When you step away, progress stalls. That’s not leadership. That’s dependency.
In aviation (which I’ve done for years), no pilot flies alone for long. You rely on checklists, instruments, copilots and systems. Not because you can’t fly the plane solo, but because flying safely requires redundancy, collaboration and awareness of your own limitations.
Business is the same. You don’t scale by controlling everything — you scale by building systems that work without you.
Related: 5 Long-Term Strategies to Build and Sustain High-Performing Teams
Hiring people you’ll actually trust
One of the best things I ever did as a founder was throw out the traditional hiring playbook. I don’t look at resumes. I don’t care where you went to school. I want to know how you think, how you solve problems and how you communicate under pressure.
We’ve hired people from outside the telecom industry, from outside the U.S., from industries like fashion or finance. They’ve become some of the best team members I’ve worked with. Not because they knew telecom, but because they knew how to think critically, challenge assumptions and own their outcomes.
If you want to stop being the hero, you have to hire people you’ll trust with the keys. That means focusing on mindset and fit, not just experience. It also means giving people the freedom to operate. A strong team isn’t just made of smart people — it’s made of empowered people.
Replace yourself (over and over again)
A lot of founders talk about “working on the business, not in the business.” But few follow through. Why? Because stepping out of a function you once owned feels like giving up control. But in reality, it’s the most strategic move you can make.
I’ve made it a habit to regularly ask myself: “What am I doing today that someone else should own within the next six months?” If I can’t find anything, I either haven’t built the right team—or I haven’t learned to let go.
Replacing yourself isn’t about disappearing. It’s about creating clarity. When everyone knows what they’re responsible for, decisions get made faster. Mistakes become learning moments instead of bottlenecks. And progress scales with or without your direct involvement.
When I handed off key engineering decisions to people I trusted, our product got better. When I stepped back from day-to-day project management, execution improved. When I stopped being the one reviewing every deal, we closed more of them.
Your job isn’t to hold everything together. It’s to build something that holds together without you.
Related: 7 Ways to Build a High-Performing Team
Focus on systems, not heroics
One of the best lessons from flying is that systems outperform instinct. In a crisis, you don’t rely on your gut—you follow the checklist. You troubleshoot systematically. You communicate with the team. You execute the procedure you practiced 100 times before.
Businesses should work the same way. If a deal goes south, a product fails or a system breaks, your company shouldn’t rely on you to dive in and save it every time. That’s not sustainable—and it’s not scalable.
Instead, build systems that catch problems early. Build dashboards that show you where things are headed. Build processes your team can run without hand-holding.
The less your company relies on heroics, the more it can rely on consistency.
Lead from the front, not the center
There’s a difference between leading and doing. I still jump in when needed. But I don’t try to be the center of everything. That’s not leadership — that’s inertia.
Leading from the front means setting direction, making the hard calls and clearing obstacles so your team can execute. It means showing up with clarity, not with your hands on every project.
When your business is small, you have to do a little of everything. But as it grows, your job is to make sure everyone else can do their jobs better.
That starts with letting go of the need to be the hero.
Final thought
If your company falls apart when you take a week off, it’s not a business — it’s a solo act with support staff.
The founders who scale well are the ones who replace themselves again and again, who build teams that make good decisions without them and who see their job as building the system, not being the system.
You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to build a room full of smart people — and trust them to fly the plane.
In the early days of starting a business, the “do-it-yourself” mindset is a survival skill. You write the code, pitch the client, manage the books and clean the office. There’s pride in wearing every hat, and sometimes, no other option.
But eventually, if you’re still doing everything yourself, you’re the bottleneck, not the solution.
One of the hardest transitions a founder has to make is letting go of being the hero. I’ve been there. I bootstrapped 46 Labs from day one. There were no investors, no parachute, no backup plan. For the first few years, I didn’t take a salary. I handled the technical architecture and the business strategy while working alongside a handful of teammates who also had skin in the game.
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