Growth Ritual #93

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The “Busy” Trap: Why We Needed a Hard Reset

Let’s be real for a second.

I’ve been in this game for over 20 years. I’ve built 50+ apps, exited companies, and written two best-selling books on product growth. You’d think by the time I launched Next Big App, I’d have the “vision vs. execution” balance perfectly figured out.

I didn’t.

Six months ago, we entered the Workup accelerator program by İşBank. Honestly? I walked in thinking about the network and the logos. I didn’t expect to be schooled on discipline.

But looking back at our Demo Day last week, I realized the biggest asset we gained wasn’t a contact list. It was a mirror.

The Problem: The Dopamine of the Grind

Here is the fatal flaw of the “Indie Hacker” and ambitious founder: We love the weeds.

We love solving that one bug. We love closing that one ticket. We love replying to that one customer email. It feels like work. It is work. But often, it’s just productive procrastination.

When you are heads-down coding features or putting out fires, you are driving the car at 200 km/h. That’s great, unless you’re driving in the wrong direction.

The “Forced Zoom-Out”

The real value of Workup wasn’t just the POCs (though validating our tech with a massive enterprise like İşBank is huge).

The real value was the Weekly Evaluation Meeting.

Every week, despite the chaos of the daily grind, we were forced to stop. We had to lift our heads, look at the horizon, and answer the hard questions:

• Are we still on course?

• Does the code we wrote yesterday serve the vision for next year?

• Are we building a feature or a business?

This discipline is the bridge between my two books.

• The White Book is about the steps (the execution).

• The Black Book is about the AI future (the vision).

Without that weekly “forced zoom-out” you get stuck in the White Book—executing perfectly on a product that misses the market shift described in the Black Book.

The Result: Demo Day

Last week, standing in front of hundreds of executives at Demo Day, presenting Next Big App, I felt a different kind of pride.

Yes, it is an honor to be backed by İşBank, an institution founded by Atatürk himself. That responsibility is a heavy, beautiful armor we now wear.

But I also felt pride because the story we told wasn’t just a pitch. It was a strategy battle-tested by six months of rigorous questioning. We weren’t just “building an ai app studio”. We are building an ecosystem.

Your Action Plan: The Friday Audit

You might not be in an accelerator right now. You might not have a board of directors breathing down your neck.

Good news: You can replicate this.

If you want to survive the AI shift, you need to fire yourself from the “Grind” once a week. Here is the framework we used, adapted for you:

1. Block 2 Hours on Friday: Non-negotiable. No email, no Slack.

2. Ask the “Workup” Questions:

   • What did I do this week that actually moved the revenue needle? (Not just ‘work’)

   • If I keep working at this pace on these tasks, where will I be in 6 months?

   • What creates the most leverage for next week?

3. The Pivot Check: In the era of AI, the market changes weekly. If your roadmap looks exactly the same as it did 3 months ago, you aren’t paying attention.

Don’t let the noise of today drown out the signal of tomorrow.

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👇 The Pitch That Won Them Over

Curious to see what 6 months of strategy looks like condensed into a few minutes?