The blissful simplicity of execution

As a founder, most of your time is spent in a fog. You’re trying to find product-market fit. You’re iterating, talking to customers, reading signals, second-guessing everything. You’re never quite sure if what you’re doing is right.

It’s exhausting. It messes with your confidence. And it never really ends.

But a few months ago, I had a break from that. We needed an iOS app for Superthread’s new transcription feature. The main team was tied up, so I decided to build it myself.

For once, the brief was clear:

→ Capture audio.

→ Transcribe it locally.

→ Sync it into Superthread.

That was it. No questions about ICPs, no strategic forks, no existential ambiguity. Just: here’s what we need. Go make it.

And it was… peaceful.

Coding again after a few years away should’ve been painful. It wasn’t. I moved fast. Everything worked. When bugs appeared, I fixed them. When Apple approved the app, I grinned like I used to years ago.

This was a different kind of work — execution, not exploration. And I’d forgotten how good that feels.

When you’re in founder mode, every decision feels like it might kill the company. When you’re in builder mode, the world shrinks. The goal is in focus. You just move.

Founding is long-term painful with uncertain payoff. Execution is short-term tiring but deeply satisfying. You need both, but they’re polar opposites. I didn’t reali

se how burned out I was from constant ambiguity until I got to work on something with none.

If you’re a founder in the thick of it, try to carve out a small win like this. Build something bounded. Deliver it. Remind yourself you can still do things end to end.

It won’t solve everything. But it helps — more than I expected.