Let’s be real for a minute. Most software founders don’t fail because they lack ideas, talent, or resources.
They fail because they stall out.
Here’s the pattern I’ve seen over 25 years building projects from $2M to $45M budgets, and in my own indie SaaS launches:
❌ The Stall Cycle
- Excitement Stage — new idea, high energy, “this could be big.”
- Build Stage — weeks or months of coding, designing, tweaking.
- Doubt Stage — feature creep, analysis paralysis, second-guessing, stoppers.
- Abandon Stage — project gets shelved, momentum dies.
Sound familiar? 95% of builders get stuck here. The world never sees their work.
âś… The Breakthrough Cycle
The 5% who win do something radically different: they finish. Here is the framework:
- Define DONE: Don’t just “work on an MVP.” Decide: “Done means one working feature live by day 30.”
- Ship Early: Get something in front of real users before it’s comfortable.
- Feedback > Features: Every extra week in your editor is a week without data.
- Momentum Compounds: One win (a shipped MVP, a paying beta user) creates fuel for the next sprint.
Momentum is a muscle.If you build it, you get addicted to finishing.If you stall, you get addicted to starting over.
Which cycle are you in right now?
Drop a comment:
- Where have you stalled in the past?
- What would “finishing” look like for you?