Founders’ Hardest Decisions and How I Make Them

1) Introduction

Being a founder is often described as having a strong vision, building a great team, and growing a company. In reality, however, founders spend most of their time making difficult, high-impact decisions —often with limited information and under significant pressure.

This article focuses on the hardest decisions founders face and how I approach making them. Not just what decisions are difficult, but how to build a systematic way of making them. Because many founders struggle not due to a lack of intelligence or experience, but because they lack a repeatable decision-making framework.

Common challenges include:

• Making decisions under uncertainty
• Balancing speed versus quality
• Managing limited resources (time, budget, team)
• Aligning technical realities with business goals
• Navigating people dynamics with co-founders, teams, and investors

The goal of this article is to show that better decisions are not about having perfect intuition, but about creating clear decision systems.

In this guide, we will cover:

• Core decision-making concepts every founder should understand
• The most common hard decisions founders face
• Technical and product-related decision layers
• A step-by-step decision-making framework
• Performance, security, and optimization considerations
• Practical approaches used at Ondokuzon Yazılım

2) Core Concepts (Beginner-Friendly Section)

Understanding founders’ hardest decisions begins with understanding the nature of decisions themselves.

2.1 Reversible vs. Irreversible Decisions

Not all decisions carry the same weight.

• Reversible (Two-Way Door) Decisions: These can be changed or undone with limited cost.Example: running an A/B test, adjusting pricing slightly.
• Irreversible (One-Way Door) Decisions: These are difficult or impossible to reverse.Example: choosing a core architecture, co-founder separation, full system rewrite.

The first question I ask is:

Is this a two-way or one-way decision?

This single distinction dramatically reduces decision stress.

2.2 Uncertainty vs. Risk

Founders often confuse uncertainty with risk.

• Uncertainty: What you cannot measure yet
• Risk: What you can estimate and manage

Reducing uncertainty requires experiments, prototypes, and user conversations.Managing risk requires limits, scenarios, and fallback plans.

2.3 Decision Frameworks

A decision framework ensures consistency across similar situations.

A simple framework:

• What is the goal?
• What are the alternatives?
• What criteria matter? (impact, cost, risk, speed)
• What is the worst-case scenario?
• What is the rollback plan?

Decisions made within a framework are less emotional and more resilient.

2.4 Product–Market Validation

One of the hardest founder decisions is when to commit.

Before scaling, founders must validate:

• Is the user pain real?
• Is the solution understood?
• Do users return?

Without validation, growth decisions become expensive guesses.

2.5 Technical Debt

Technical debt is not bad code—it is conscious speed borrowing.

The problem arises when interest accumulates:

• Releases slow down
• Bugs increase
• Teams become hesitant to change anything

Recognizing when debt starts hurting velocity is a critical founder skill.

3) Technical Depth (Pro Section)

Many difficult founder decisions appear to be business decisions, but are deeply rooted in technical realities.

3.1 Architecture Decisions

Early-stage founders are often tempted by microservices. In practice:

• Microservices add operational complexity
• Monitoring, DevOps, and coordination costs rise
• Teams slow down without maturity

Best practice:

• MVP phase → Modular monolith
• Post-PMF → Gradual domain-based service separation

3.2 Build vs. Buy Decisions

A simple rule:

• If it creates competitive advantage → Build
• If it is a commodity → Buy

Payments, authentication, analytics are usually “buy.”Core algorithms or proprietary workflows are usually “build.”

3.3 Roadmaps: Outcomes Over Features

Feature-based roadmaps fail founders.

At Ondokuzon, we structure roadmaps as:

• Outcome
• Metric
• Hypothesis
• Solution

This aligns engineering effort with real business results.

3.4 A Simple Decision Scoring Example

function scoreDecision({ impact, cost, risk }) {
return impact * 0.5 - cost * 0.3 - risk * 0.2;
}

This does not decide for you—but it makes trade-offs explicit.

3.5 Common Founder Mistakes

• Early optimization driven by future fantasies
• Building for investors instead of users
• Ignoring technical debt signals
• Delaying co-founder conflicts

Delayed decisions are often the most expensive ones.

3.6 Ondokuzon’s Practical Approach

At Ondokuzon Yazılım, we:

• Define decisions around outcomes, not features
• Keep early architectures intentionally simple
• Use data—not hope—to justify scaling
• Plan performance and security from day one

4) Step-by-Step Decision-Making Guide

Step 1: Classify the Decision

Is it reversible or irreversible?

• Reversible → Decide fast, test fast
• Irreversible → Slow down, gather data, plan scenarios

Step 2: Write the Problem in One Sentence

If the problem cannot be clearly written, it cannot be clearly solved.

Step 3: Force Three Options

Avoid binary thinking. The third option often unlocks creativity.

Step 4: Fix the Evaluation Criteria

Impact, cost, risk, time-to-value—define them upfront.

Step 5: Define a Stop-Loss

Example:

“If this feature does not impact the metric within two sprints, we stop.”

This prevents emotional over-investment.

Step 6: Document the Decision

Write down:

• What was chosen
• What was rejected
• Why
• What will be measured
• When it will be reviewed

5) Performance, Security, and Optimization

Founders often ask: When should we care about performance and security?

Answer: From day one—at the right level.

Performance

• Core Web Vitals
• API latency
• Bundle size

Security

• Authentication and authorization
• Rate limiting
• Secure data storage
• Compliance considerations

6) Technologies Used (Ondokuzon Perspective)

• Laravel / PHP: Fast, stable backend foundations
• React / Next.js: SEO-friendly, scalable frontends
• React Native: Cost-efficient mobile delivery
• Firebase: Rapid validation and real-time needs

7) Frequently Asked Questions

Are founders expected to always be right?
No. They are expected to build systems that correct mistakes quickly.

Is intuition bad?
No. Intuition improves when guided by structure.

When should we refactor?
When technical debt starts slowing delivery.

Is there one correct decision framework?
No. But having any framework is better than none.

8) Conclusion

Foundership is not about perfect foresight.
It is about making progress under uncertainty.

The founders who succeed are not those who guess best—but those who:

• Decide systematically
• Learn quickly
• Adjust without ego

Every project is different, and decision quality depends on context. At Ondokuzon, we help founders clarify decisions through technical and strategic structure—so progress is intentional, not accidental.