Current in Entrepreneurship Blog

Adapted from “The Addiction No Entrepreneur Talks About,” Entrepreneurship Handbook (Aaron Dinin, PhD)

There’s a familiar moment many founders don’t talk about — the urge to refresh your analytics dashboard one more time, the compulsion to check how many views your latest post got, or the instinct to monitor every micro-metric that signals “progress.”

This isn’t just curiosity. It’s a soft addiction — a pattern of behavior that makes us feel productive without actually moving the business forward.

• From Hustle to Habit
  
  Entrepreneurship culture rightly prizes hard work, drive, and hustle. But there’s a point where those qualities morph into something less constructive: a habitual search for validation instead of substantive action.
  
  In the article, the author recounts checking his phone obsessively while at an event — not to capture notes or engage — but to watch a post’s views climb. That moment isn’t unique to him; it’s familiar to many of us who have ever measured self-worth in likes or daily active users.
  
  Why This Matters for Founders
  
  When we focus on signals that are easy to check — likes, views, opens, partial metrics — we can conflate them with real progress. Those metrics may stimulate dopamine the same way a new notification does, but they don’t necessarily correlate with:
  

• Customer understanding

• Product/market fit

• Revenue growth

• Team alignment

• Strategic decisions
  
  They just feel like progress. That feeling can become addictive. We refresh, consume more content, chase the next micro-win, and convince ourselves we are moving forward — even when we’re not.

The Real Work vs. The Illusion of Progress

The difference between busy and productive is subtle but important:

Busy — checking dashboards, refining non-critical features, scrolling reports

Productive — talking with customers, testing hypotheses, shipping imperfect versions, learning from real feedback

The addictive loop keeps us in the busyness phase. It feels good because it avoids risk: clicking is safer than pitching, listening is softer than selling, checking is easier than launching. But startup outcomes are decided by action, not observation.

Break the Loop

To build something meaningful, entrepreneurs need to become intentional about where they invest attention:

1. Measure what matters. Identify the key performance indicators tied to actual outcomes, not vanity metrics.

2. Time-box consumption. Schedule specific windows for reading or reviewing metrics so they don’t overtake creation.

3. Prioritize action. Treat imperfect releases and direct market tests as first-class work rather than “later, when it’s ready.”

4. Recognize emotional patterns. Be honest about what drives you: is this task moving the company forward, or just calming your anxiety?
   

A Cultural Shift for Founders

This “addiction” isn’t a personal flaw; it’s a byproduct of how entrepreneurial success is framed. We celebrate motion and hustle without always distinguishing between meaningful and distracting motion. When founders recognize that true progress usually feels slow and unglamorous, they can build healthier habits and focus on the work that actually matters.