Hey friends 👋
This week we’re tackling something we see constantly: founders confusing motion with traction. You know the pattern—you’re “crazy busy” but somehow not making any real progress.
We dive into what JDM calls “procrastivity” (productivity + procrastination), where you’re doing things that feel productive but are actually just clever ways to avoid the scary work that actually matters. Think: rebuilding your onboarding flow before anyone’s even used it, or spending a week redoing your pitch deck because one advisor said it needs to “pop more.”
Here’s the reality check: Your startup won’t live or die based on your visual brand guidelines. It’ll live or die based on whether you can get customers to pay you money. Period.
We walk through real scenarios of founders caught in what we’re calling the “Over-Optimization Olympics”—endlessly polishing things before they’ve proven there’s anything worth polishing. From the two technical co-founders hiding in Figma instead of doing sales, to the founder pivoting between customer segments because they haven’t put a real offer in front of anyone.
The pattern? Founders retreat to technical work (the safe stuff) instead of adaptive work (the scary, ambiguous stuff that actually moves the needle). But here’s the thing: customers can’t tell you “no” while you’re color-coding swim lanes in Notion.
Key insight: Most procrastivity is just unprocessed fear wearing a productivity costume.
In Frivolous Thoughts, JDM shares his existential moment taking a tarmac bus at LAX and wondering if he’s living in the movie Speed. Cameron laments the Kings’ season outlook and battles with Xfinity’s AI bots (who clearly need better churn detection).
Bottom line: If it feels productive but doesn’t involve talking to customers or testing your assumptions, you’re probably just procrastinating with extra steps.
— Cameron and JDM
