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Emotional Wake-Up Call
DIY isn’t free. It’s the most expensive “discount” in business. Here’s why founders who do it all eventually hit a wall:
Time = Capital: Every hour in the weeds is an hour you can’t spend driving growth.
Errors = Margin Leak: DIY mistakes don’t just take time they quietly eat into profits.
Growth Delayed = Growth Lost: The pipeline you didn’t build today is tomorrow’s revenue gap.
Continuity Risk: If your business halts when you do, you’re not building a company you’re running a fragile gig.
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Part I: Founder’s First Moves
Define your genius zone. What are the 1–2 things only you can do? Guard them like treasure.
Price your time. $250K projected revenue ÷ 2,000 hrs = $125/hr. Anything under that? Delegate, automate, or drop.
Delegate with guardrails. Don’t hire for everything. Start with 2–3 recurring tasks that bleed you dry.
Automate first. A $50/month tool that saves 5 hrs/week = $1,250/month reclaimed.
Start small. Even 5 hrs/week of VA help extends your runway and frees your brain.
Think of this as DIY triage, you’re patching leaks so you can breathe again.
Part II: CFO’s DIY Audit
1. True Cost of DIY (TCDI) Audit
For each major task, calculate the cost of DIY: (Time × Founder Rate) + (% error rate × revenue impact per error) + (Growth Lost)
Product Founder (Shipping Orders): $1,125 + $240 + $900 = $2,265/month invisible tax.
Service Founder (Invoices): $800 + $1,000 + $1,600 = $3,400/month invisible tax.
That’s two-three grand a month you thought you were ‘saving’ by doing it yourself.
2. The Throughput Ceiling (Capacity)
DIY caps growth. Don’t ask, “How much will outsourcing cost?”
Ask: “How much more revenue could I handle if I stopped doing this myself?”
200 orders/month solo = $8K cap. Outsourced fulfillment unlocks 600 orders/month = $24K capacity.
That’s $16K/month trapped under the DIY ceiling.
3. Continuity Risk (The Single-Point-of-Failure Tax)
If your business halts when you do, you don’t own a company, you own a job with no sick days.
Product Founder: One flu away from $8K lost revenue (200 missed orders × $40)
Service Founder: Two weeks offline isn’t rest, it’s a $9,000 (60 hrs × $150/hr ) hole, and a client you may never win back
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Community Note
Founder, we’ve all worn the entire closet of hats. The battle is learning when to peel one off. What was the first task you delegated and what did unlock for you? Share it we’ll compile the best into a community playbook.
Keep showing up, keep cheering each other on and as always, fly easy.
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