Why Fixing Boring Problems Beat Every Exciting Opportunity I Chased

Read time: 6 minutes

Hey, welcome back.

Last week, we talked about the only energy that can't be faked. You can read that (and all past issues, here).

I read a tweet from Alex Hormozi this week that made me think about every failed business I've watched die.

I want to talk about this because I lived the opposite. And it nearly destroyed everything.

When Winning Felt Like Losing

Grabble was my first startup. A mobile shopping app. Tinder for fashion.

We won awards. Topped the app charts. Had millions of users. Won UK Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

From the outside, it looked like we were winning.

Inside, the business model didn't work. We were growing like crazy but couldn't make the unit economics efficient.

We knew this. For months. Maybe longer.

And what did we do? We chased the next thing.

We tried to pivot to Mobula. A platform to help other brands build commerce apps. We'd use everything we learned from Grabble to build something new.

Except Shopify had already spent $10M trying to crack the same problem. And failed.

We had the team. The experience. The industry insights. The technical skills.

What we didn't have was the discipline to fix what was already broken before building something new.

The Pattern

Here's what actually happens when you chase new opportunities while your current thing is broken.

You tell yourself the new thing will solve the old problems. More revenue. More momentum. More resources. Then you'll fix everything.

This is a lie.

The new thing just adds complexity. Now you have all your old problems plus a whole new set of problems from the thing you just launched.

By July 2018, we had to shut it all down. Grabble. Popcorn. Mobula. Everything.

We'd defied the odds so many times before. Pulled through when we had no money. Survived when we shouldn't have.

This time was different. We were trying to create something that even bigger companies with more money couldn't crack. And we were doing it while ignoring fundamental problems in our existing business.

What I Learned Too Late

The lesson wasn't complicated. It just hurt.

Hire problem solvers and give them autonomy. Who you hire is more important than how you do what you do. It's all about the margin.

Not enough margin and crisis comes around very often.

But more than that: fix what's broken before you build what's new.

The exciting opportunities will distract you from boring operational work every single time. Because boring work is boring. New opportunities are exciting.

Excitement doesn't build businesses. Execution does.

Starting Over

After Grabble failed, I had to figure out what to do next.

I was 30. Burned out. Struggling with insomnia and anxiety that got so bad I couldn't function.

I started a newsletter about mental health and brain science. Not to build a business. Just to process what I was learning while trying to fix myself.

I wrote every week for two years. Sharing what worked. What didn't. The research I was reading. The experiments I was running on myself.

3,000 people subscribed. They followed the journey. They cared about the topic. They trusted what I was sharing because it was real.

Only then did we launch Heights. After two years of doing one thing consistently. Building trust. Creating value. Fixing my own problems first.

We didn't chase opportunities. We focused on making one product work. A supplement that actually helped people's brain health based on real science.

Launched during COVID. No supply chain experience. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

But this time we fixed problems as they came up instead of chasing new things. When we hit a challenge, we solved it. We didn't pivot to a new opportunity.

The result? We raised £1M in 20 minutes when we crowdfunded. 30,000 monthly subscriptions. £10M in revenue. £35M valuation.

Not because we chased every opportunity. Because we stayed focused on fixing what needed fixing.

What This Actually Means

Your business has problems right now. Real ones. Problems you know about.

You're probably also looking at new opportunities. New markets. New products. New partnerships. New channels.

Those opportunities are seductive. They promise to solve everything. More revenue. More growth. More momentum.

They won't.

They'll just give you more problems on top of the ones you already have.

The boring work of making what you already have actually work is more valuable than any exciting new thing.

Fix your existing business before you expand it. Make your current product great before you build new features. Solve the problems you know about before you chase new opportunities.

This isn't sexy advice. Nobody writes articles about "Founder Spends Six Months Fixing Operational Issues."

But it's what separates the businesses that survive from the ones that fail while looking successful.

The Hard Truth

I wish someone had told me this with Grabble. That winning awards and topping charts doesn't matter if your unit economics don't work.

That the discipline to fix boring problems is more valuable than the vision to see new opportunities.

That saying no to exciting things so you can focus on making your existing thing work is the hardest and most important skill you'll learn.

I learned it by failing. Publicly. Embarrassingly. After winning awards and being called a success.

You don't have to learn it that way.

To fixing first, expanding later, Dan

P.S. Look at your business right now. What are the three things you know are broken? Those three things are probably worth more than the next ten opportunities you're considering. I learned this by ignoring that truth until it killed my company. Don't make the same mistake.

Diary of a CEO with David Sinclair on longevity

Superb convo with the man who got me into longevity in the first place (David, not Steven lol).

Listen Here

Win Every Argument by Mehdi Hassan

Brilliant frameworks for debating ideas.

Read Here

Project Hail Mary

It's as good as everyone says.

Watch Here

A 2020 study published in Emotion found that people who learned to accept their “non-ideal emotional states”, including low motivation, low energy, and neutral days, experienced significantly higher overall well-being and lower stress.

The key insight: self-acceptance amplifies emotional resilience, while self-judgment weakens it.

📌 Quick Takeaway →

Your average days aren’t failures; they’re emotional training grounds.
When you stop punishing yourself for being human, everything in your life compounds faster.

→ Link to study

In my goal to help more entrepreneurs/people who are looking to level up their careers, I've just started taking 1-1 consulting calls (only 1 a week)

Why book a call? Some of my expertise/success:

I've built 5 startups. 1 win, 1 fail, and 3 still going.
E-Commerce: Heights - with revenue over £30M a year.
Community: Foundrs, one of the UK's top founder communities
Podcasting: Leaders Media - I bootstrapped a media company that made the UK's top business podcasts including Secret Leaders, with over 50M downloads across the network.
Health/Mental Health: Overcame burnout, insomnia, depression & anxiety in pursuit of success. Hear me on Steven Bartlett's on Diary of a CEO
Angel Investing: I've invested in over 100 startups
Coached & Mentored: Certified coach & 5* mentor on Mentorpass
Personal Brand: Over 400,000 followers across social

So if you're interested in booking a session with me to talk all things business or building a personal brand, book for 30-minutes or 45-minutes. (limited spots).

Book a Call with Dan