• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Roberto Rodes

Roberto Rodes

  • Home
  • The Blog
    • Articles
    • Raw Reflections
    • Gems I Found
  • Projects
  • Library
  • Now
  • About Me
  • Newsletter
  • Let’s Work Together
  • Let’s talk!

Don’t Let Your Results Fool You.

Roberto Rodes
October 11, 2021 Leave a Comment
3 min read

Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

We tend to judge our decisions based on the results we get. But is that the right thing to do?

When we start learning to code, it’s usual to follow guided exercises, tutorials, and the like. The boundaries are clear, and we have instant feedback on whether we solved the initial problem or not: either the program works according to spec, or it doesn’t. The factors out of our control are relatively small, and outcomes tightly correlate with our decisions.

So judging our choices based on the results is…we could say…fair enough.

However, things get wicker as we move into the real world and start growing real businesses and products.

We might make the right choices along the way and still don’t find a problem worth solving. We might discover a worthy problem and still not find a suitable solution for it. And even if we do, we can build a whole system that works…and still fails.

Complexity becomes massive, and there are infinitely more elements out of our control than under it.

On the one hand, there is a longer delay to see the results.

It’s one thing to build and launch a product, but it can take a long time to see long-term results like customer adoption or consistent, sustainable revenue. So did we make the wrong choices?

Or simply haven’t we seen the effects of those choices yet?

On the other hand, the driving factors for those results may not be apparent.

They hide far behind a complex causal chain of mechanisms, most of which may not be under our control. Did we fail because we chose the wrong problem? Was it because we shaped the wrong solution? Was it because the messaging we conveyed did not resonate with people? Was it because of the pricing we set out?

Or was it due to other external factors, like a new, unexpected competitor jumping into the scene, a disruptive external event (like COVID), or maybe someone in your team getting off track?

It’s hard to know. 

Maybe it was even none of the above. Or, more likely, it was a combination of several factors that led to that result.

Yet, one thing is clear: creating and growing businesses and products is more about failing than about succeeding. Luck and randomness play a critical role.

You can make the right choices and still get bad outcomes. And you can make the wrong choices and still get good results. And, still, it’s frequent to emit a judgment exclusively based on the results.

So how should we judge if we are doing right or wrong then?

Well, we’ll have to save that for another time. But for now, don’t let the results of your past decisions fool you. Judging your choices just by their outcome will lead you to the wrong conclusions.

When that happens, success gets still more random and elusive.


Say it out loud. Is there anything you disagree with? Anything missing that you’d like to add? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts so, please, leave them in the comments.

Get on board. Do you want to receive more content like this right in your inbox? You can sign up for the newsletter here or in the form below 👇.

Share it. Do you think someone you know may enjoy this post too? If so, please forward it to them.

Have a creative time.

Related

Filed Under: Raw Reflections, The Blog Tagged With: Business, Decision Making, Learning, Life, Product, Strategy

About Roberto Rodes

Product guy, software designer & engineer. Founder of Freegrowth. I love to solve problems and to improve things through technology.
Ex-CTO at Facephi, founder of Deebbler and Wakeando, I've been over ten years designing, building, and marketing native and web software products.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join me for the ride!

In Playing the Long Game, I write about my journey as a creator and my existentialist quest for doing the right thing. It’s part of my system to make sense of the world, get better at work and life, and become a better human.

From my personal lens, I’ll delve into topics as diverse as business, strategy, design, software development, marketing, education, health, philosophy, ethics, and any other thing that might prove relevant at some point.

No more than once a week, I’ll share what I’m working on and send you the best of what I find, learn, and build along the way.

I promise to keep it worthy of your attention.

I’ll never spam you. You've got my word. You’ll be able to unsubscribe at any time by just clicking the link you’ll find in the footer of my emails.

Still, not sure? If you want to see what kind of emails you'll receive, please take a look at the Playing the Long Game archive and explore past episodes.

Footer

Site Sections.

  • Home.
  • Blog.
  • Projects.
  • My Personal Library
  • What I’m doing now.
  • About me.
  • Newsletter.
  • Let’s Work Together.

Latest Posts.

  • Wild Bill’s and The Jobs of Premium Soda.
  • Stop Going in Circles and Ship Work that Matters.
  • Why Blindly Creating a SaaS May Not Be a Smart Move to Begin Your Entrepreneurial Career.
  • Why We’re Leaving the Cloud.
  • How to Shape a Base Software Architecture for Your SaaS as a Beginner Founder to Adapt to Changes Fast (And Without Going Crazy).
  • A Tale of Two Top-Downs.
  • Taming Model Malpractice.
  • How to Learn Web3

Looking for Anything Concrete?

Let’s Connect!

  • Email
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • Medium
  • Twitter
  • English

© 2023 · Made with by Intropreneurs