Buy Back Your Time - Summary and review

The buyback principle = don't hire to grow your business. Hire to buy back your time.

LIE: "The more I work, the more successful my business will be".

You can't personally outwork yourself to a better business. Instead, the smartest entrepreneurs look for a way to build a game you want to play forever. It looks something like

The more money your business makes → the more of your time you buy back → happier founder.

Growing a SaaS company is painful - and that is something you have to endure as a founder. But you also need to spend your time on tasks that energize you, and free up time for valuable tasks. Otherwise, you will inevitably reach the "pain line".

The pain line = the point where growth becomes impossible.

Either (A) change - adopt new beliefs, systems, strategies, or (B) subconsciously stop your own growth by either:

You try to exit your business by selling it. But as you, typically at this point, do it from a position of desperation as you have already hit your pain line, it rarely becomes an optimal exit.

You don't want to sell your business - you want to get bought.

You self-sabotage without knowing it. You as founder make bad decisions that prevent more painful growth from taking place, it can be random things like:

• launch new products or business

• rebrand or rehaul the website

• replace staff because of small mistakes

By doing so, you knock down growth to a manageable state - but prevent your business from growing at the same time. And often you are not even aware of it.

You tell yourself, "I'd rather have smaller company".

Stalling is secretly a decision to slowly let your business die, as growth is necessary for survival. A stalled company will be less attractive to customers, employees, and will slowly get eaten up by competitors.

On the other hand, more business growth = more freedom. When you grow (in the right way), you can hire, develop faster, and deliver more value to customers, which creates a reinforcing loop. At the same time, it allows you to spend more time on strategic work that makes more money, grows the business, AND gives you more energy.

A Buyback loop is when you scale by looping over the following 3 steps.

1. 🔍 Audit: Continuously audit your time to determine the low-value tasks that are sucking your energy.

2. 🔁 Transfer: Transfer those tasks (ideally to someone who is better at them & enjoys them)

3. 💸 Fill: Fill your time with higher-value tasks that light you up and make you more money

Do not focus on working as hard as you can, or think that setting the right goals is what makes or breaks your business. Focus on building systems.

As James Clear in Atomic Habits puts it:

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of you systems.

- James Clear, Atomic Habits

Don't be an employee at your own company - and spend your time on tasks that you are not 10X good at, or that drains your energy. Instead, to become ultra-successful (like billionaire-level success).

1. find what lights you up and then

2. spend all your time and energy on that

Billionaires like Oprah Winfrey followed this formula.

The three levels of trades that are available to everyone (but most people don't realize they are making them).

Using your time to buy an income, most entrepreneurs get stuck here, grinding things out.

Starting to ask: how do I buy back more time with this purchase?

Not just hiring more people (can increase workload), rather asking above question before making a hire, buying software, or completing transaction.

Delegate + replace in motion, focus on the most valuable tasks you enjoy.

You need to go through the prior levels first.

You can focus solely on strategic questions - and have already found replacements and delegated most or all operational work.