The goal isn't to feel busy.
Published October 17, 2025 • Based on Founder Reality Episode 31
Also available on: Apple Podcasts • Spotify • YouTube
This week, three ideas clicked in a way that fundamentally changed how I think and run SimpleDirect and ANC. They might not seem connected at first, but they share the same core truth about building sustainable businesses.
Let me walk you through each one.
Thought #1: Why LinkedIn Makes Me Cringe (And Why I Was Wrong Too)
I've talked endlessly about how much I despise LinkedIn's corporate theater - the self-promotional selfies, the "crushed this meeting" posts, the motivational quotes over sunset photos, the fake vulnerability.
You know exactly what I'm talking about. "I failed 47 times before I succeeded." It's all formulaic content designed to hit emotional buttons and rack up likes. It works - these posts get hundreds of thousands of likes - but it feels performative rather than real.
Here's the thing: as humans, we're incredibly good at spotting BS. We can tell when something is authentic and when it's performance theater, even if we can't consciously articulate why. That's one extreme - 100% performance, 0% actual building.
But here's my mistake: I went to the complete opposite extreme.
For years - literally from 2019 when I started SimpleDirect until recently - I posted nothing. No Twitter, no LinkedIn, nothing. I was grinding in silence, building products, but not telling anyone.
Why? Because one of our competitors was obsessed with keeping secrets. They hid their company name, used blank webpages for hiring, went to extremes to protect their "groundbreaking idea" - which turned out to be pretty simple after all.
I got sucked into that mindset. I believed we needed to protect our secrets by staying quiet. The result? Zero feedback, no community, shouting into an empty room.
Meanwhile, I watched other founders building in public - sharing updates, frameworks, authentic thoughts about what they were learning. These weren't performance posts. They were real learning moments that became my learning moments too. That's actual substance.
The real answer: You need both. Not 50/50 necessarily, but you can't go 100% on either extreme.
For me, it's 70% building, 30% sharing what I'm building. If you're more naturally inclined toward marketing, maybe it's 60/40 or even 50/50. Find your number based on your strengths.
Here's a simple test: If you disappeared from the internet tomorrow, would people miss the value and frameworks you create, or would they just notice the silence?
If they miss the value - your insights, tools, and ideas - you're doing it right. If they just notice you stopped posting months later, that's performance mode. For the few founders whose content I genuinely value, I notice within a week when they stop posting because I'm actively looking for their insights.
Thought #2: Most People Are Measuring The Wrong Things
Three years ago, my North Star was simple: How much money can I raise? How much capital have I committed? What's our valuation? When do we do Series A?
That's literally what I checked every day. Every time I opened LinkedIn and saw founders raising millions, I'd feel jealous and think "I should be doing the same."
I was measuring someone else's version of success, not mine.
I have brilliant engineer friends making $150-300K at Google. They've all thought about starting companies but think it's too risky. And they're right to look at me - for the first 3-4 years, I barely made anything while working more than 40 hours a week on SimpleDirect alongside full-time work and school.
But here's what they're missing: Their metrics plateau.
Join Google at $150K, get to $300K in a few years, maybe $500-600K in 10-15 years. Then it stops. Office politics, promotions, cost-of-living adjustments. The trajectory flattens completely. It's linear.
As an entrepreneur, yes it's risky. Most businesses don't make it. But once you hit that breakout point, the math is completely different. You can make millions annually with a small team. You control expenses and keep what's left.
Another example: Content creation metrics.
DHH (founder of Basecamp) switched to a new blog platform and spent six months checking how many people read his posts daily. Zero growth, no engagement, super frustrating. Those daily metrics made him want to quit.
That's why 60-70% of podcasts quit at episode 20. People measure daily dopamine hits instead of 12-month windows. If you zoom out to annual progress instead of daily stats, you see the compound growth that matters.
The same applies to money. Most people measure every decision linearly: "If I do task A, I get paid B." That's employee thinking - trading time on a straight line.
Entrepreneurs think differently: "How does this compound? How can I make money while sleeping? Am I building freedom or just trading time for money?"
The metrics you choose determine where you end up. Choose wrong metrics, you plateau. Choose right metrics, you compound.
Write down three numbers you track daily right now. Are they linear activities or compound value? If they're linear, you might be on the wrong path.
Thought #3: I Stopped Working and Started Building Systems Instead
Most founders (including me for years) are always in execution mode. Something comes up, we process it, we do it. Another thing comes up, same cycle. We're constantly grinding and checking things off lists.
It feels productive because we're always busy. But being busy doesn't equal being productive.
What I've shifted to is what I call "architect mode." Instead of doing every task that comes to me, I'm asking: Which tasks are repetitive? Which can be automated? Can I build a mental framework to do this faster?
Build the system once, let it run forever.
Examples from SimpleDirect:
Customer support used to eat hours every day - someone asks a question, we answer, repeat forever. Now we're using ChatRoute (an open-source tool) that handles 80% of customer questions automatically. It connects with OpenAI and Claude, securely processes customer data, and builds responses 24/7.
I've freed up massive amounts of time.
Delegation works beautifully too. I work with John on my team, and we develop frameworks together. The system runs without me, hopefully without John too. It's okay to spend time building the system initially - that's the investment that pays compound returns.
Here's the harsh question: If you disappeared for a week - seven days, no replies, no work - would your business keep running?
If everything stops, you're doing work. If everything keeps running, you've built systems.
Even for me, if I stopped working for seven days, SimpleDirect would run but at a much slower, less productive rate. That tells me where I need to improve. Where are the bottlenecks? What processes can we automate?
How to start: Look at the last three tasks you did today or this week. Write them down. Can any become a system? Can AI handle it? Can software automate it? Can you document the process so someone else can run it?
If the answer is yes, stop doing the task and start building the system.
Consider urgency, importance, and time investment. If something takes an hour of your eight-hour workday and happens multiple times per week, that's a prime automation candidate.
You don't need to code. Use Zapier, Slack bots, ChatGPT workflows. Just ask Claude or ChatGPT "how to automate [specific task]" instead of "how to build a system" - the former is much less overwhelming.
If you save one hour per day, that's five hours per week. That compounds into time you can invest in growth activities that actually move the needle.
The Common Thread
These three thoughts might seem different, but they share the same theme:
Performance vs. Doing: Find the balance between building and broadcasting. You need both to succeed.
Measuring What Matters: Measure compound value instead of linear activity. What you measure determines your destination.
Systems Over Work: Move from doing tasks to building leverage. Stop being reactive, start being proactive.
All three require the same mindset shift: Stop optimizing for feeling productive. Start optimizing for compounding results.
LinkedIn performance feels productive but builds nothing long-term. Checking daily metrics feels productive but misses the bigger trajectory. Doing manual tasks feels productive but doesn't scale.
Real productivity is building systems that compound, measuring what actually matters, and sharing just enough to distribute what you've built. Real productivity could mean doing nothing while systems run themselves.
Three Questions for This Weekend
1. Performance vs. Doing: What's your ratio? Are you at 0% (building in silence) or 100% (all performance, no substance)? Find your honest number. Mine is 70% building, 30% sharing.
2. What are you measuring? List your top three metrics right now. Are they linear or compound? If they're linear, figure out how to change them.
3. What work could be a system? Document things you repeat constantly. Turn one into a system this week - not this month, this week.
Answer these three questions honestly, and something will shift in how you work.
These three thoughts fundamentally changed how I run SimpleDirect and ANC. They might do the same for you.
George Pu builds AI-powered businesses at SimpleDirect and ANC. Follow along for unfiltered founder insights at @TheGeorgePu.
