How to Make Decisions When Nobody Is Coming to Help
How do I decide things when I have no data and no boss?
Sort every decision into reversible or irreversible. Reversible decisions should be made in minutes with 60% of the information — the cost of deliberating exceeds the cost of being wrong. Irreversible ones (co-founders, equity, long leases, key hires, pricing architecture) deserve a written argument, a devil's advocate, and a night's sleep.
Founders overestimate how many of their decisions are permanent. Pricing can change. Positioning can change. Your logo, your stack, your first channel — all reversible, most in a week. Treating them as sacred is how a month disappears.
The two-bucket test
- ·Reversible: could you undo this within thirty days for under a month's revenue? Decide today. 60% confidence is enough.
- ·Irreversible: does undoing it require a lawyer, a negotiation, or someone's goodwill? Slow down and write it out.
The one-page decision note
For irreversible decisions, write a single page before deciding: the decision, the two or three real options, what you believe and why, what would have to be true for you to be wrong, and what you will watch to find out. It takes twenty minutes and it is the highest-leverage twenty minutes in the business.
Deciding without data
You will rarely have enough data early. That is normal, not a failure of process. Substitute: the last three customer conversations, one small reversible test, and the base rate — what usually happens to businesses like yours in this situation. Base rates are unglamorous and unreasonably accurate.
Decisions travel
A pricing change is never only a pricing change. It moves your positioning, your buyer, your support load, your roadmap and your cash timing. Before committing, write the three downstream things this decision quietly changes. Most bad outcomes come from decisions that were fine in isolation.
Speed on reversible decisions and rigour on irreversible ones. Most founders do exactly the opposite.
Do this next
- Sort your open decisions into reversible and irreversible.20 minutes
- Decide every reversible one today, out loud, with a confidence number.1 hour
- Write a one-page note for the largest irreversible one.30 minutes
- For your next big decision, list three downstream effects before committing.15 minutes
Avoid
- —Waiting for data that will not arrive at your scale.
- —Deciding irreversible things in a good mood or a bad one.
- —Reopening a reversible decision more than twice.
“Take my current decision, tell me whether it's reversible, argue both sides honestly, state a confidence level, and name what would prove me wrong.”
Ask Aury thisLast edited 2026-07-28