A few years ago I checked my Y Combinator application 20+ times a day.

Last month I was obsessively refreshing Twitter analytics every few hours.

Then I stopped caring about numbers completely - and everything started working better.
The brutal reality of metric obsession:

• Checked YC application status obsessively after 2021/2022 interviews - made co-founders stressed with my manic energy
• Twitter became a constant refresh cycle - 5 likes meant failure, 30 likes meant success
• SimpleDirect dashboards consumed 2-3 hours daily - Stripe, Google Analytics, Amplitude, everything
• One check costs 10-20 minutes of attention span, multiplied by dozens of daily checks

What I was really doing:

• Treating metrics like video game scores instead of building great products
• Personal anxiety disguised as being "data-driven"
• Only insecure founders check constantly - confident ones check weekly or monthly
• Chasing vanity metrics while ignoring end-to-end customer experience

The wake-up call:

• Major SimpleDirect partnership pulled out, making all those signup/revenue numbers meaningless
• Realized I was focused on wrong metrics - not distribution, not real customer experience
• One partner leaving could collapse the whole tower I was measuring

What shifted when I stopped checking:

• Most successful Twitter period was posting once daily without caring about results
• SimpleDirect worked better when I talked to customers instead of checking dashboards
• Consistency beat intensity every time
• Building beat measuring every time

The math of 1% daily improvement:

• Improve 1% daily for a year = 37x better (3,700%, not 365%)
• Most founders chase moonshots and viral moments instead of daily improvements
• Spent 2 years obsessing over VC funding instead of making SimpleDirect better daily

My new system:

• Check metrics once weekly during Sunday coffee review
• Daily question: "What one thing can I make 1% better today?"
• Focus on genuine improvements, not impressive-sounding metrics
• Delete social media apps, use browser extensions to create friction

The Basecamp example:

• Ruby on Rails creator with hundreds of thousands of followers
• Started new blog, got crickets for first 30 posts
• Didn't give up, kept writing consistently without obsessing
• Now gets 800K monthly views on one site, 3M on another

Red flags you're obsessing over metrics: Checking dashboards multiple times daily, treating social media engagement like game scores, losing 2-3 hours to compulsive checking, measuring vanity metrics instead of customer experience.

Bottom line: Personal anxiety disguised as work won't make your business successful. When you stop checking obsessively and focus on fundamentals, things actually start working. Consistency always beats intensity. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your numbers is stop looking at them.

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