How to Tell When to Keep Going (and When to Run)

16 June 2026People

Source excerpt

All success stories feel like a mess from the inside. Claire Hughes Johnson on how to tell the difference between normal mess and the kind that should send you running.

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Apollo layer

What a founder can learn

Founder takeaway

Don’t mistake the inevitable messiness of building a company for proof that it is failing. Pause to distinguish ordinary growing pains from problems serious enough to justify leaving or changing course.

Why it matters

Founders operating inside the mess can overreact to temporary disorder or normalize warning signs for too long. Making the distinction explicit improves decisions about persistence, people, and direction.

Relevant guides

Clarity & Focus People

Put it to work

List the three biggest sources of chaos in the business. For each, ask: “Is this a normal problem we can work through, or evidence that we should stop—and what specific signal would change our answer?”