Grit won’t solve everything and I learned this the hard way

I’ve been noticing something in founder culture that bothers me – this obsession with grinding through everything. Work weekends. Just grit your way through.

And I get it. When it’s yours, it’s easier to keep working through holidays. The urgency is real. You’re behind, you don’t have a co-founder yet, you’re not full-time. So you compensate with more hours.

I’ve done this. A lot.

But I’m learning that grit opens many doors, but not all of them respond to force.

Some problems you need to think your way through, not muscle your way through.

I just rewatched a Dalton + Michael video on real vs fake startups, and they talk about poor starting conditions – no co-founder, unclear direction, can’t work full time yet. And the instinct most of us have is to work harder to make up for it.

Hire a contractor to replace the co-founder you don’t have. Build a pitch deck even though you don’t know what to do yet. Work every weekend to compensate for not being full-time.

But working harder doesn’t fix these problems. You can’t grit your way into finding the right co-founder. And if you are going solo, you can’t brute-force your way to product-market fit or finding the right partners. 

And the sad part is that if you burn out trying, the recovery time will slow you down more than if you’d just been strategic from the start.

You are your most valuable asset as a founder. Quality rest makes you more resilient. Better decisions come from a clear head, not an exhausted one.

I’m still figuring this out myself. It’s hard to practice what I preach. But I’m learning to ask: is this a problem that needs more effort, or does it need a different approach?

Sometimes the answer is to stop pushing and start thinking.

What do you think – where have you seen grit work, and where has it failed you?