At some point in the last week, you sat with a decision longer than you needed to.
You already had enough information to move.
You had a sense of what the right call was.
And you still waited.
Most founders have never been taught how to decide. They have been taught to think harder, or trust themselves more, or sleep on it.
None of that produces a decision.
It just produces a longer loop of the same thoughts.
What produces a decision is a structure that turns what you know into a clear next move.
How Instagram Made the Decision That Changed Everything
In 2010, Kevin Systrom had a problem.
He had built an app called Burbn. It could do a lot of things. Check-ins, social points, location tagging, photo sharing.
It was trying to be everything.
And nobody was using it.
A few dozen users but no growth. And Foursquare was already doing the main thing better.
So Systrom sat down with his co-founder Mike Krieger and asked a simple question.
What is actually working?
They pulled up their data and looked at how people were spending time inside the app. Most features were being ignored. But one thing kept showing up.
People were sharing photos.
And photos was not even the big idea or feature they had.
Photos were almost an afterthought when they built Burbn. But users kept coming back to that one thing, without being asked to.
That was the signal.
So they made a decision that felt scary at the time.
They threw out almost everything they had built. The check-ins. The points. The location features. All of it.
They kept only the photos.
Then they asked themselves four questions.
Did they have what it takes to build this well? Yes. Small team, fast builders, investors already on board. The leverage was there.
Was it simpler to execute than what they were doing before? Much simpler. One feature instead of ten. Cleaner to build, easier to explain.
Were they taking on more risk by pivoting? They looked at this honestly. Staying on the current path, in a market they were losing, with users who were not growing, was the riskier move. The pivot was actually the safer bet.
And what was the potential return? A focused product in a space nobody had clearly won yet. The upside was real.
They rebuilt the app in eight weeks and renamed it Instagram.
They launched on October 6, 2010.
The servers crashed within hours. A million users in two months. Facebook acquired them two years later for a billion dollars.
What Systrom and Krieger did in that room is what I now call the LERR model.
Leverage. Ease. Risk. Return.
They did not go with their gut. They went with a way of thinking. And that way of thinking changed everything.
The Cost of Deciding Without a System
Most founders I speak to are exhausted from making the same decisions repeatedly, because they never built a system to make them once.
Every week the same questions come back.
Should I raise my prices. Is this the right niche. Am I working on the right thing.
Without a structure, decisions become emotional.
You go with how you feel that morning, or what someone said last week, or whatever doubt happens to be loudest in the moment.
Over time, you stop trusting yourself.
You think you’re bad at deciding. Butin reality, you just have never had a reliable process to return to.
Decision-making is a skill. It improves with the right tools and deliberate practice.
The founders who scale have built better systems for how they think.
The LERR Model: How to Choose Between Options
When you are sitting with a decision and you have more than one path in front of you, this is the framework to use.
LERR stands for Leverage, Ease, Risk, and Return.
Leverage asks: do you already have what it takes to make this work?
The skills, the team, the resources, the relationships.
You are not starting from zero if the assets are already in your hands.
Ease asks: how simple is this to execute relative to your other options?
The simpler path is not always the weaker one. Often it is the smarter one.
Risk asks: what specifically could go wrong if you choose this?
Write it down. The lost money, the lost time, the lost reputation. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Once you can see it clearly, you can decide if the tradeoffs are worth it.
Return asks: what is the realistic upside if this works?
Score each option from one to five across all four dimensions. For risk, the lower the risk, the higher the score.
Add them up. The highest score points you to your next move.
Your Action Steps
Step 1. Pick one decision you have been sitting on for more than two weeks. Write it down.
Step 2. List every option in front of you. Even the ones that feel unlikely.
Step 3. Score each option from one to five on Leverage, Ease, Risk, and Return. Add them up.
Step 4. Look at the highest score. If it surprises you, that is useful information. If it confirms what you already knew, now you have a reason to move.
Step 5. Give yourself 24 hours to commit to a direction. Not a final answer. A direction.
Let’s Build It Together
I put together a free decision-making workbook that walks you through five decision-making frameworks that I personally use in my life and business.
It includes scorecards, worksheets, and reflection prompts for each model.
This is the same resource I give my paying clients before they start any new launch or major pivot.
How Did We Do?
If this gave you a perspective you haven’t heard before, share your thoughts in the comments below. I read every comment — your feedback helps me create content that truly moves you forward.
Love. Ajit
