Bi-Weekly 40 Hour Kit by Fabiano Abreu Ott

The journey of growing your business without grinding 24/7.

40 Hour Kit: Did You Accidentally Build Your Own Trap?

(Here for the subject line? Find it in the💡 Entrepreneurial Insight section)

Hey Reader,

Last week I ran a data analysis on my working hours over the last six months. I tracked every hour and task I've been working on while building my company. Here are some of the numbers:

• On average 35.1 hours of pure work per week.
• 830 hours in total.
• 18 of 23 weeks stayed under 40 hours.
• Main focus areas: 27% was Content, 25% was Sales, 18% Product, and 13% Delivery.

You'll find all the numbers in this blog article.

What do your analytics look like? Or what would be your guess?

And now, let's get into your (bi-weekly) 40 Hour Kit:

​
💡 Entrepreneurial Insight

The golden handcuff theory for the corporate world says: stay too long, and you'll wake up twenty years later with regrets.
For founders a similar concept exists: the business operations become something you depend on rather than something you chose.
​
Never stop asking yourself if this is what you wanted.

Based on 'The Success Trap' by Dr. Amina Aitsi-Selmi (entrepreneur and executive coach for the NHS, BBC and WHO).

⚖️ Balance Hack

Outsource the task you hate most, not the one that costs the most.
Research suggests that spending roughly €150 a month to delegate a disliked task produced a happiness effect comparable to earning about €40,000 more a year.

Inspired by 'Time Smart' by Ashley Whillans (Harvard Business School professor).

🚀 Challenge

You might know the feeling: potential customers that ghost you instead of replying with a 'no'. This week:

1. Pull the ghosts. List every interaction from the last 90 days that ended in silence.
2. Sort them into two groups. Did they not believe they had the problem? Or did they believe it, and then get scared of picking the wrong solution?
3. Fix the second group. Identify the most common fear, and change one thing: offer a smaller first commitment, add a guarantee, or replace your menu of options with a single clear recommendation.

Take on their fear-avoidance, emotional perspective. Instead of adding more benefits and urgency.

Based on 'The JOLT Effect' by entrepreneur and best-selling author Matthew Dixon, built on an analysis of more than 2.5 million recorded sales conversations.

✨ Recommendation

Sarah Hum bootstrapped Canny to $3.5M ARR and 13 people. Along the way she turned down 100+ investor chats.

Four learnings from her:

1. Pick low-touch or high-touch. Don't mix.
   Either people sign up for a trial without talking to you, or they book a demo and you sell. Your choice affects everything downstream (features, pricing, copy, etc.)
2. Simplify every single customer touchpoint.
   Content, ads, landing page, pricing, onboarding, product. Was one of their keys for early traction.
3. Name your one growth lever, then focus on it.
   ​Give your time to what moves the needle, not to what's comfortable.
4. Watch the "I'll have it by today" trap.
   Choose wisely what features you add instead of overpromising to customers.

Based on the lessons shared from the bootstrapped co-founders of Canny: Andrew Rasmussen and Sarah Hum on their blog.

🎙️ 1 Insight from a Founder I talked to

Matin bootstrapped a SaaS (Refix) serving enterprise clients worldwide, building a team of 4+ while working 40 hours per week

His trigger before automating a process: the feeling when a routine task starts taking over time from the work that grows the business.
Then he writes down the manual workflow first, understands each part, then automates. Besides Sales calls and Customer Support he automated almost all of his business.

❓ Question for you to ask another Entrepreneur

What are you currently pretending to understand?

Have a nice and productive week!

-Fabiano

Get into a peer group of 5 other founders in your business stage:

​Join the Priority List for the 40 Hour Entrepreneur Club.​

​Read past 40 Hour Kits here.