10x the Problem
👋Hi! I'm Molly. This is where I share the lessons I’ve learned from building fast-moving, messy, ambitious companies. For more from me, you can also find me on the WorkLife Podcast, on LinkedIn, and in Glue Club, a community for leaders who care about building great companies.
When you're stuck—when you're agonizing over a decision, or when it feels like there’s no obvious answer—I have a simple tool I use with founders and operators inside Glue Club: 10x the problem.
What do I mean by that? Whatever decision you're weighing, whatever process you're designing, whatever person you're evaluating—imagine it 10 times bigger.
10x the number of customers.
10x the number of employees.
10x the amount of data, spend, or chaos.
Force yourself to ask: Would this still work? Would this person still scale? Would this solution even survive?
If your users, customers, or revenue are doubling every six months, you don't get the luxury of designing for today. You have to design for a company twice—or ten times—the size you are now.
Of course, you should ultimately factor in your company’s growth rate. If your company and business are not growing that fast, you might not need to design for scale. It can create a lot of problems to implement solutions or hire leaders who are too far ahead of your actual growth rate and business size. But if your graphs are going up and to the right at any meaningful speed, 10xing becomes an invaluable tool. Your current growth trajectory isn't just a backdrop. It's the single biggest input into how you should be solving problems.
Here’s why 10xing the problem helps: it cuts through the false comfort of assuming things will stay the same. When you force yourself to imagine a 10x bigger version of the issue, the answer often gets brutally clear.
