Cracking the Entrepreneurial Chasm: The Real Challenge of Building
I continue to hit a wall (or a Chasm as I am calling it now)
While trying to build/grow/start and juggling with everything that it entails to manage several business at a time, with clients, deliveries, and progress to be made... And that nagging feeling that despite working 12-hour days, I'm barely moving the needle on growth and achieving results. Yes, I see things happening, things moving, things getting done. But, thats not the same as achieving success, far from it...
This is the concept or wall that I've been trying to name for months. That frustrating gap between grinding hard as a solopreneur and actually building a business that can grow beyond my personal bandwidth.
I have gone with: "Entrepreneurial Chasm"
The brutal reality I'm facing? Working harder isn't the answer. I can't hustle my way across this divide.
Every entrepreneur I admire went through this exact phase. They all hit this same wall where doing everything yourself becomes the very thing holding you back. It's not about effort – it's about evolution.
Right now, I'm knee-deep in this transition. My businesses are growing (or having optimistic metrics), but I'm the bottleneck. I have more ideas than hours. More opprtunities than capacity. And the solutions I need require resources I'm still building. I see the solutions, I see what is the strategic path ahead and what I need to do to get there. It is the chams that continues to show and I struggle to find the bridge to cross it.
The Prioritization Framework That's Changing Everything
What's transforming my approach is a simple but powerful realization: not all tasks are created equal. Each hour I spend has dramatically different potential ROI depending on where I focus it.
I've started categorizing everything into three buckets:
- Growth Drivers: Activities that directly generate revenue or expand reach. These might be sales calls, creating signature content, or developing new offerings. One hour here might generate $500-1000 in value.
- Necessary Operations: Tasks that keep the business running but don't directly drive growth. Think bookkeeping, basic client management, and maintaining existing systems. These typically generate $50-100 per hour in value.
- Low-Value Tasks: Administrative work, basic content updates, inbox management, and scheduling. These rarely generate more than $20-30 per hour in equivalent value.
The chasm persists when we spend most of our time on the bottom two categories. We feel busy but make minimal progress on actual growth.
My uncomfortable truth? I was spending 70% of my time on tasks that generate the least value. No wonder I felt stuck.
BUT, being real honest with myself, some of the low value and necessary operations tasks, also help me stay healthy and sane, I also enjoy creating social media post, reaching out to customers from my B2C businesses, or creating decks... Among many other small tasks that are part of the least valuable ones...
Accelerating Across the Chasm: Practical Steps
What's becoming crystal clear is that crossing this chasm requires specific shifts:
I need margin to bring on help - even starting small. Last month I finally hired someone for 5 hours a week to handle my inbox and basic admin. Those 5 hours felt like oxygen, giving me space for three additional sales conversations that landed a new client.
I need to stop guessing and get serious about metrics. I've started tracking how I spend every hour for one week each month. The patterns are illuminating – and sometimes embarrassing. Time spent vs. return generated tells the real story of where my business is stuck.
Most importantly, I need to be honest about what I'm truly excellent at versus what I'm doing because "someone has to." Every hour spent on tasks outside my zone of genius is an hour not spent on growth. For me, client strategy work and content creation deliver 10x the results of anything else I do.
Key Takeaways for Fellow Chasm-Crossers
For anyone else in this phase, here's what's making the biggest difference:
Start with ruthless time tracking. You can't optimize what you don't measure. Understanding exactly where your hours go is often shocking – and clarifying.
Calculate your personal hourly value. What's the most revenue-generating activity you do? That sets your benchmark. Anything that generates significantly less should be first on your delegation list.
Take small delegation steps. You don't need a full-time team immediately. Start with 5 hours of help on your most repetitive, low-value tasks. The mental space created often pays for itself immediately.
Focus on systems, not just delegation. Document your processes as you go. The 15 minutes spent creating a simple checklist makes future delegation exponentially easier.
Protect your growth-driving time fiercely. Block your calendar for the activities that directly drive revenue and growth. Everything else can get squeezed around these non-negotiable blocks.
The question that keeps me up at night: How long does crossing this chasm take? Is it months of strategic focus or years of grinding before breakthrough?
I don't have that answer yet. But I'm committed to finding out this year.
This is the real work of entrepreneurship – not just starting a business, but building one that can thrive beyond your personal limitations.
I'd love to hear from others in this same phase: What's been your biggest challenge in crossing the solopreneur chasm? What small change has made the biggest difference?