Problems are Proof you are Growing by Nino Mihilli

Founder Journal: Some Problems Are Proof You're Growing

The Problem You’re Complaining About Today Might Be the Opportunity You Were Praying for a Few Years Ago

There’s something strange about entrepreneurship.

You spend years trying to get more.

More customers.

More employees.

More revenue.

More opportunities.

More phone calls.

More projects.

More people interested in what you’re building.

Then you get some of it.

And suddenly you have a whole new list of problems.

Customers need answers.

Employees need direction.

Payroll gets bigger.

Systems start breaking.

Communication gets harder.

The simple spreadsheet that worked when you were small starts looking ridiculous.

The process you could keep in your head no longer fits there.

And sometimes, in the middle of all that frustration, I have to remind myself:

This is the problem I wanted.

I’ve Had Problems I Would Have Loved to Have Years Ago

Think about how often this happens.

You start a business and worry because the phone isn’t ringing.

Years later, you complain because it won’t stop ringing.

You worry because nobody knows your company.

Then you worry because more customers expect more from it.

You struggle to find employees.

Then you struggle to manage them.

You want more sales.

Then you discover that more sales create more invoices, more service, more payroll, more communication, and more opportunities for something to go wrong.

The problem changed because the business changed.

That perspective helps me.

Growth Rarely Arrives Alone

We talk about growth as if it’s a number.

Revenue grew 20%.

Customers increased.

Headcount doubled.

Sounds great.

But growth brings passengers.

Complexity.

Risk.

Communication problems.

Higher expectations.

More regulation.

More cash moving through the business.

More decisions.

More ways for a mistake to multiply.

The business you needed to reach $1 million in revenue may not be the business capable of handling $5 million.

And the founder who got the company to one level may need to change to lead it through the next.

That’s the part we don't celebrate enough.

What Worked When You Were Small Can Become Dangerous Later

Small businesses survive on improvisation.

The owner remembers everything.

Employees text each other.

Someone keeps a spreadsheet.

Another person has the password.

A customer calls and everyone knows exactly who they are.

It works.

Until it doesn't.

Growth exposes weaknesses that were already there.

The problem isn't necessarily that the business became worse.

The business simply became too large for the old method.

That’s an important distinction.

A Spreadsheet Can Be Brilliant—Until It Isn't

I love simple solutions.

I don't believe every problem needs expensive software.

Sometimes a spreadsheet is exactly the right answer.

But eventually you can reach a point where five people are editing different versions.

Someone copied the wrong row.

Something didn't save.

Information exists in three places.

Nobody knows which version is current.

Now the cheap solution isn't cheap anymore.

It’s creating labor.

Errors.

Confusion.

Risk.

That's usually a signal.

The company has outgrown something.

Growth Reveals Where the Business Was Depending on Memory

This is something I've become increasingly aware of.

A surprising amount of small business lives inside people's heads.

Ask the right employee and they know everything.

How the customer likes something done.

Which employee usually works where.

Who needs to be called.

How an unusual invoice gets handled.

Why a certain process exists.

That's fine when everyone is sitting near each other and the team is small.

Then someone goes on vacation.

Or leaves.

Or gets sick.

Suddenly everyone realizes the company had a database.

It was just walking around in somebody's head.

That's not the employee's failure.

That's a system problem.

Flat Staffing Has Taught Me This in Real Time

Staffing looks straightforward from the outside.

Customer needs workers.

You send workers.

Done.

Anyone who has actually operated a staffing company knows there is a lot behind that sentence.

Recruiting.

Availability.

Scheduling.

Hours.

Approvals.

Payroll.

Billing.

Employee questions.

Customer changes.

Call-offs.

Replacements.

Compliance.

Communication.

Now multiply that across many people.

A tiny inefficiency repeated once isn't a big deal.

Repeat it across more than a hundred workers, week after week, and suddenly it's a real business problem.

That's why we've invested so much effort into improving our systems.

Not because software is exciting by itself.

Because growth makes small inefficiencies expensive.

Sometimes Growth Makes You Feel Like You're Getting Worse

This is one of the strangest parts.

The company grows.

You're objectively doing more business.

Yet everything feels harder.

You may even think:

We used to be better at this.

Maybe you were.

But maybe you were serving 20 people and now you're serving 100.

Those are different environments.

If mistakes rise 50% while volume rises 500%, you may actually have improved.

The raw number can fool you.

That's why context matters.

Growth changes the denominator.

The Answer Isn't Always More People

This is another lesson I've learned.

A process gets overwhelmed.

The immediate answer is:

Hire someone.

Sometimes that's exactly right.

People matter.

Good people can transform a company.

But hiring someone into a broken process doesn't automatically fix the process.

Sometimes you've just hired a human being to absorb the dysfunction.

Then volume increases again.

Now you need another person.

And another.

Eventually you have a department built around compensating for something that should have been redesigned.

Before adding labor, I increasingly want to ask:

Why does this require so much labor in the first place?

This Is Where Technology Becomes Interesting

My interest in AI and software isn't about replacing people simply because technology can.

I'm interested in removing work that shouldn't require so much human attention.

Repetitive data entry.

Checking the same information repeatedly.

Moving information from one system to another.

Finding inconsistencies.

Producing routine reports.

Catching obvious errors.

These are areas where technology can help.

If software saves someone two hours, I don't automatically think:

Great, eliminate the person.

I think:

What higher-value work could that person do with those two hours?

Talk to customers.

Solve problems.

Recruit.

Build relationships.

Sell.

Think.

Improve something.

Humans are expensive when we use them like machines.

They're incredibly valuable when we let them do the things machines aren't good at.

More Revenue Can Create a Cash Problem

This is one of those business lessons that sounds backwards until you experience it.

Growth can consume cash.

Especially in a business where expenses happen before customer payments arrive.

Take staffing.

Employees don't care that a customer's invoice hasn't been paid yet.

Nor should they.

They performed the work.

Payroll is due.

So more business can mean more money going out before more money comes in.

You can be growing and feel financially tighter.

That's why revenue alone doesn't tell the whole story.

Growth needs support.

Cash.

Systems.

People.

Processes.

Discipline.

Otherwise success itself can put pressure on the company.

Every New Level Finds a New Weakness

Fix one problem and another appears.

At first, you need customers.

Then you need capacity.

Then you need people.

Then you need systems.

Then you need managers.

Then you need better financial controls.

Then you need better reporting.

Then communication becomes the issue.

Then maybe culture.

Then maybe leadership.

The finish line keeps moving.

I've stopped expecting business to reach a magical point where there are no problems.

That's probably not coming.

The goal is to have better problems.

Better Problems Are Still Problems

I don't want to romanticize this.

A payroll problem isn't fun because the company grew.

An unhappy customer doesn't become enjoyable because you have more customers.

Stress is still stress.

Problems still need to be solved.

But perspective matters.

There's a difference between:

"Everything is falling apart."

and:

"The system that got us here can't handle where we are now."

The second statement gives you something to work with.

Sometimes the Founder Is the System That Needs to Change

This may be the most uncomfortable part.

Not every bottleneck is software.

Not every bottleneck is an employee.

Sometimes it's me.

If every decision requires me, growth eventually hits my personal capacity.

If everyone needs my approval, I'm the queue.

If information only reaches one person, that person becomes a risk.

If nobody can move without asking the founder, the company isn't really scaling.

It's stretching the founder.

I've had to think differently about that as I've built more things.

The goal can't be to personally become faster at everything forever.

Eventually the organization has to become more capable.

Success Requires Letting Go of Old Versions of the Company

There can be nostalgia around the early days.

Everybody knew everything.

Decisions happened quickly.

Processes were informal.

The company felt close.

There's something special about that.

But you can't demand the benefits of growth while insisting nothing change.

Some structure becomes necessary.

Some processes need documentation.

Some decisions need owners.

Some information needs systems.

Some responsibilities need to move away from the founder.

The trick is adding structure without killing the qualities that made the company good in the first place.

That's harder than it sounds.

The Same Thing Happens Personally

Growth doesn't only expose weaknesses in companies.

It exposes weaknesses in us.

More responsibility tests patience.

More money tests discipline.

More employees test leadership.

More opportunities test focus.

More influence tests character.

More success tests humility.

Sometimes we pray for the next level without realizing the next level will demand something from us too.

You don't simply receive more.

You have to become capable of carrying more.

Scripture Has a Simple Principle About This

Luke 16:10 says:

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much."

I've always liked the practicality of that idea.

Handle what is in front of you well.

Then be prepared for more responsibility.

Because "more" isn't just more reward.

It's more stewardship.

More people depending on you.

More resources to manage.

More consequences attached to your decisions.

That's something I understand differently today than I did when I was younger.

I Try to Ask a Different Question Now

When something becomes difficult because we're growing, I'm trying not to ask only:

"Why is this such a mess?"

I also ask:

"What is this problem trying to teach us about the next version of the business?"

Maybe we need a system.

Maybe someone needs ownership.

Maybe the process needs to disappear.

Maybe we need better data.

Maybe we need training.

Maybe the customer isn't a good fit.

Maybe we're growing too quickly.

Maybe I need to get out of the way.

The problem is information.

Use it.

Don't Pray for Growth and Resent Everything Growth Brings

I have to remind myself of this.

There were times when I wanted the opportunity I now occasionally complain about managing.

That's humbling.

It doesn't mean I should tolerate chaos.

Quite the opposite.

Gratitude isn't an excuse for poor operations.

But I can be grateful for the opportunity while still improving the problems that came with it.

Both can be true.

Final Thoughts

There will always be problems in business.

The question is whether they're the same problems year after year.

If you're growing, your problems should change.

You wanted customers.

Now you need systems to serve them.

You wanted employees.

Now you need to become a better leader.

You wanted revenue.

Now you need stronger financial controls.

You wanted opportunity.

Now you need discipline to choose among opportunities.

You wanted growth.

Now you need an organization capable of carrying it.

That's the deal.

And occasionally, when I'm frustrated by something that has become more complicated than it used to be, I try to remember:

A few years ago, I might have prayed for the opportunity to have this problem.

So solve it.

Learn from it.

Build the next version.

Then prepare yourself.

Because if you're fortunate enough to keep growing, eventually you'll earn an entirely new set of problems.

And maybe that's not such a bad thing.

— Nino Mihilli

Stay Connected with Nino Mihilli

🌐 Personal Website: https://www.ninomihilli.com

🏢 T47 Group: https://www.t47group.com

👷 Flat Staffing: https://www.flatstaffing.com

📖 Read Nino Mihilli's novel, The Variable, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX3783RG

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