Why Your Startup Feels Stuck (And How to Fix It)
- Bonny Morlak
- Aug 6
- 2 min read
Why your startup feels stuck is one of the hardest questions for founders to face. You have a product. You have users. You might even have growth. From the outside, it looks like you are doing everything right. Inside, though, it feels like you are pushing through mud.
This post unpacks why your startup feels stuck and how to fix it, based on my recent
YouTube video on the same topic.
If you want to hear this explained in my voice, here is the video
Why Your Startup Feels Stuck
Most founders assume stalls happen because of bad ideas or bad timing. In reality, it is often a skipped skill: knowing how to extract real insight from all the noise.
Startups do not fail quietly because their ideas are flawed. They fail quietly because their feedback loops are broken. You may already be collecting feedback, but there are three traps that distort the truth:
The Echo Chamber: asking people who are too close to give honest answers.
The Feedback Filter: hearing only what you want to hear.
The Idea Love Affair: being so attached to your solution that every signal feels like confirmation, not correction.
The Skill That Fixes It
The skill that prevents stalls is not simply “getting feedback.” It is knowing how to extract the truth from the noise and act on it quickly.
Here is a simple loop you can use:
Talk to five real users.
Ask one question: What almost made you quit?
Listen without defending.
Fix that one thing.
Repeat.
This loop works because it pulls you out of the guessing game. You move from decorating your startup to actually iterating based on reality.
Are You Pretending to Iterate?
Ask yourself when you last changed your roadmap, messaging, or pricing based on real user input rather than gut instinct or social media trends. If it has been more than two weeks, chances are you are decorating, not iterating.
If you want to hear this explained in my voice, here is the video
Conclusion:
When your startup feels stuck, it is not about grinding harder or finding a shiny new growth hack. It is about building the skill to extract truth from the noise and act on it fast.
If this resonated, share it with a founder who needs it.
What’s Next?
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