Just to chime in with the 'this is normal' crew, I work at Shapeways, where from the outside we (probably) appear to be crushing it. We just raised a big rouf from A16Z and have been written up in tons of blogs/etc.
For the past two years (since I joined), we've all been feeling the same thing. Scaling, running out of disk space, needing that one Product hire terribly, hearing from investors about that one feature we discussed back in Dec 2010 that is still 'a few releases away.'
I have fallen into this trap a few times as the dirextor of product.
However what I've realized, is one thing that helps me sleep at night:
Despite feeling like we're losing the race and not making progress, we've overhauled our architecture, revamped our entire consumer and internal software to be much more user friendly, built a strong release heartbeat to crank out one solid feature a week, rebranded the company, and built confidence in our org that people's ideas will be heard.
We've made great progress, and even though there are things that our CEO and investors still want us to build, I'm damn proud of how far we've come. I'm still scared shitless about conpetitors and hitting our goals for the year... And it drives me nuts when I see another company launch something that I'm excited about, but then I look back to our product 2 years ago, and I can't help but smile at how far we've come.
The only advice I can give you (apart from saying thst this is totally normal!) is to continue to focus on what's most important, not most urgent. Sure, many of the fires you described today sound terrible, but what is the #1 most important thing today? Is it revenue? Is it growth?
Once you've identified that, pick the single most significant thing you can do to make an impact, and do it. Then re-evaluate.
If you find yourself fixing the most urgent thing constantly (I.e. servers are slow, investor is calling), you will just run in circles and constantly feel like you're behind and not making progress.
If you as a company can agree on the most important thing at any time and run towards it at 200% velocity, that momentum will always make you feel like you're making forward progress.
Good luck, and feel free to email me (address in my profile) if you have questions or need a pep talk :P
For the past two years (since I joined), we've all been feeling the same thing. Scaling, running out of disk space, needing that one Product hire terribly, hearing from investors about that one feature we discussed back in Dec 2010 that is still 'a few releases away.'
I have fallen into this trap a few times as the dirextor of product.
However what I've realized, is one thing that helps me sleep at night: Despite feeling like we're losing the race and not making progress, we've overhauled our architecture, revamped our entire consumer and internal software to be much more user friendly, built a strong release heartbeat to crank out one solid feature a week, rebranded the company, and built confidence in our org that people's ideas will be heard.
We've made great progress, and even though there are things that our CEO and investors still want us to build, I'm damn proud of how far we've come. I'm still scared shitless about conpetitors and hitting our goals for the year... And it drives me nuts when I see another company launch something that I'm excited about, but then I look back to our product 2 years ago, and I can't help but smile at how far we've come.
The only advice I can give you (apart from saying thst this is totally normal!) is to continue to focus on what's most important, not most urgent. Sure, many of the fires you described today sound terrible, but what is the #1 most important thing today? Is it revenue? Is it growth?
Once you've identified that, pick the single most significant thing you can do to make an impact, and do it. Then re-evaluate.
If you find yourself fixing the most urgent thing constantly (I.e. servers are slow, investor is calling), you will just run in circles and constantly feel like you're behind and not making progress.
If you as a company can agree on the most important thing at any time and run towards it at 200% velocity, that momentum will always make you feel like you're making forward progress.
Good luck, and feel free to email me (address in my profile) if you have questions or need a pep talk :P