Episode 12: What’s Your Problem: Real Talk on Operations, Focus, and Embracing Limitations

Sarah: [00:00:00] Today we’re doing a segment that is a little bit different. We’re calling, what’s Your Problem, where we’re just going to have a simple, straightforward conversation about the problems that we’ve been working on solving in our own businesses this week. I’m Sarah Schumacher and I run a website agency and stay up way too late at night writing newsletters.

Zach: I’m, Zach Oshinbanjo, construction project manager extraordinaire with very limited experience, but still putting up structures every week?

Sarah: That sounds kinda dangerous. You’re not building them yourself.

Zach: No. I just make sure that the people hammer the right nails.

Sarah: Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. That’s good. Okay, so, man. I have been working on so much stuff this week. If there’s a theme it’s enhancing operations processes . I have a website questionnaire that 99% of our clients will go through and we start a project, I’ve been updating it quite a bit to simplify some of the sections and make it a little bit more intuitive.

So I’m adding some context to some things and trying to see where I can simplify. But along [00:01:00] with that, I’ve also been building an automation to automate creation of a document that we have to create internally.

So I’ve been working on automation stuff this week. The website questionnaire is one. I have a Google sheet I’ll create for site maps. I used it for the one that I sent you. 

It took me two minutes because I spent some time, building out this system where I can basically just drop this thing in and it completely formats and does everything that I need it to do, and it’s awesome. So that’s a perfect example of using the AI stuff we talked about in our last episode because I partly used AI to help me build this thing out exactly the way that I wanted it.

Spending that, I don’t know, 30 minutes or whatever it was to build this system is now gonna save me 30 minutes on every project, going forward forever. So I’ve been solving tedious manual copy paste, document creation things this week, I guess I’m tired of stuff having to be manual, so that’s what I’ve been solving.

Zach: Operation problems are the [00:02:00] best problems to be solving, especially in the

Sarah: Yeah, I guess I’ve been in like sales.

Zach: Yeah, like not a sales problem. Like if you,

Sarah: Yeah.

Zach: at sales, that’s a big problem. Like,

Sarah: That is a big problem.

Zach: I think my biggest problem, especially over the last couple weeks probably has been just trying to identify what path makes sense. ’cause I’m actually coming to acceptance on closing some chapters. I really wanna close out that year focused on doing the things that I actually want to do.

’cause there were some volunteer things that I was a part of, things that I would just invest my own personal time in lieu of doing other things or spending time with family and whatever it may be. I gotta nix a lot of this stuff. I used to go help with 1 million cups.

And having to consistently be somewhere every Wednesday and not just show up, but make sure that things happen that’s a big leap, especially it’s outside of my W2. An additional thing that I’m doing. A lot of [00:03:00] my focus problem it’s just been centered around what is 2026, what does the rest of 2025, what does this year look like? I can’t be a little of this, doing a little of that, that’s exhausting. And with some things that I also have going on in the background, it just won’t be feasible. Like, continue to do

Sarah: Yeah.

Zach: That’s been the big one. What do you want to be invested in, Zach?

Are you really gonna continue to run a startup that’s not generated revenue in four years. Are you gonna continue to do that? Probably not a good idea. So.

Sarah: But also very normal too. I saw someone the other day, it was like, man, I haven’t paid myself anything yet with this new business. I think they’d only been running it for like nine months and everybody’s like, oh, p like that’s totally normal, nine months.

Do you expect to pay yourself within nine months? Yeah. That actually, it makes me think of the gardening advice. If you want to prevent weeds, you plant your [00:04:00] actual flowers so thickly that stuff can’t grow around them. I feel like I do the same thing.

I’ve gotten a lot better about saying no to stuff. ’cause I have to, because I’ve crowded so much stuff I want to do into my life. I don’t have the bandwidth for other things. So it sounds like you’re doing the same thing, but shuffling stuff around like that rock analogy where’s like the jar with the rocks in it.

It’s like the big rocks are the things, and you’re like, eh, like which, which rocks do I wanna have in here right now? And I’ve been doing that for a while, I guess. To the point where I feel like I’m just kind of maxed out, so it makes me have to say no. Every opportunity I have to be like, does this fit within my longer term goals?

It’s almost like there’s a scary place to be where you don’t have enough to do and you say yes to everything, which I think you have to do in the beginning anyway. ’cause then you figure out what you like. So you’re like, oh yeah, I did one many cups. It was cool for a while, whatever, but I know my energy is better spent somewhere else now, and you only know that as a result of doing it. So it’s still valuable, but it’s like a pruning process for the gardening metaphors here.

Zach: Yeah, you have to be able to [00:05:00] determine what makes the most sense for you. I think the focus myth we had that, there’s a couple episodes back, where we talked about how can you juggle and do a lot of different things. But obviously everything boils down to an opportunity cost at some point. You can’t just, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Three jobs. ‘Cause you’re gonna start doing things in a diminished capacity . Recently I thought I was gonna start a grant support 10 99 situation where I would help people write grants and stuff like that. Tried to do that a year ago. Didn’t get any activity, didn’t make any sense. And I found through that process, wanna help people get grants. ’cause there’s a almost like a very particular investment you have to have in their cause, their mission, their belief, like all of it.

You

Sarah: Yeah.

Zach: You can kind of mail it in and kind of detach and say, ah, they saved the world. Something like that. That’s cool. But I think it’s different when you apply yourself to it. But anyway, someone reached out to me from way [00:06:00] back then. I was trying to get them to move forward on type of arrangement. It didn’t make sense to them at the time, and like a year later now they’re like, Hey, I’m trying to do something and it’s due in a little bit of time. Do you think you can take a crack at it? And the old me, not old me. Previously, I probably would’ve said, yeah, I’m gonna figure it out.

I don’t want to, but I’ll figure it out. But now I’m just like, this isn’t necessarily the thing that I want to be doing. So.

Sarah: I mean, I would even say old me. I literally just said that in the newsletter I was writing about. The past version of myself that remembered how frustrating it was to start working with WordPress for the first time. I was like, that was so far ago. I don’t remember that version of myself, but it kind of is , you go through these versions of yourselves where you’re like, okay, I have done this thing and I’m just not willing to put up with that anymore.

It’s interesting actually to think about the different perspectives on Gen Z in the workplace. They’re starting out with this [00:07:00] filter where they don’t put up with crap

Zach: Yeah.

Sarah: I think us old millennials just never had.

I love all the memes about the recession or whatever, and the guy’s like first time, yeah man, we’ve been through like five of these suckers. We put up with a lot. You start freelancing, you have crappy clients.

You take on bad project fit stuff, you say yes to too much, and then there comes a time where you realize, I don’t like doing X, Y, Z, I don’t wanna work this type of person. So it just takes time. And I think everybody thinks out of the gate, they have to get it perfect and like, oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna start this business.

I’m gonna do this thing. You kind of have to deal with some of the crap in the beginning to figure out where you’re going. And so it sounds like you’re at this phase where you’re like, yeah, I’m gonna come out the other side of this being a lot more strict about what I want to do.

And that’s a way better place to be as someone that’s been on both sides. And I’m on that side now. I think some of us it takes longer to get there because I’m interested in everything, so I’ll say yes, just ’cause it sounds, [00:08:00] it’s cool or am I gonna learn something new? I get curious about, oh, how would I do that? And then I end up doing something that’s not really even something I should be doing. So I’m mostly past that at this point,

Zach: Yeah.

Sarah: hopefully.

Zach: to that point, I think is a gift in itself that only comes through the end

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Zach: Not to like, sound

Sarah: Yes.

Zach: wise sage about it, but I think now I’m at this point where it’s like, okay, you are right. I didn’t necessarily think that my life would end up here.

I think my high school even earlier aspiration was to either be an anesthesiologist or a lawyer or something like that. And now I’m really excited at the prospect of going into real estate development and it’s such a weird place for me to be in. So now I’m like, okay, what in my life has nothing to do with me going into real estate development?

Sarah: Hmm.

Zach: I.

Sarah: Yeah.

Zach: Exit out, exit out, cross it out, I think that’s [00:09:00] really what I’m gonna push forward towards the end of the year is I need to get rid of anything that doesn’t help me move in that direction. Everything else is distraction. No random volunteering don’t help people with this. I mean, I still help people with things, but gonna do those as a means of income generation or anything.

That just makes it really difficult for me to do the thing that I actually want to do.

Sarah: Well, and that excited word is the operative word. if you’re excited about the thing, including the challenges, not just like, oh, it sounds cool ’cause I’ll make a lot of money. It has to be a multifaceted angle of I am excited about learning and dealing with the challenges and everything that comes with it because this is a really interesting sphere for me. That’s the interesting thing about trying different stuff is you learn what those things are, and if it’s what makes you excited and having a skill in too, that’s also important. I’m making the assumption that you’re also skilled in what you’re doing.

Zach: You know what? I probably wasn’t [00:10:00] to start with, but there’s some overlap like, ’cause if I’m thinking about real estate development and pro construction project management and things like that, it’s all operations. It’s all

Sarah: Yes. And you got the operations gene.

Zach: Herding cats. If as long as you can make

Sarah: Yes.

Zach: X does what they’re supposed to, you’re all good. That’s all of it Is.

Sarah: Yep. It’s such a sweet spot to be into when you can find that overlap between the thing that you’re naturally good at and the thing that is in a specific job or career or whatever that you perfectly fit into. That’s how I felt when I started doing website design and development because, I love branding and everything, but when I discovered how badly handled most website projects were, mostly the hosting and the support, I was just like, man, I could do this so much better and I’m both big picture.

End goal detail oriented a stickler for details, all these things that I’m good at. I just felt like, oh man, I [00:11:00] am uniquely positioned to really solve a lot of problems in this industry. 

Sarah: Lee has just joined us.

Lee Zuvanich: Is the question, what am I working on this week?

Sarah: Yeah, or what’s your problem?

Lee Zuvanich: No problem. I feel like my problem is the most obvious problem. I take comfort in the fact that I’ve had so many founders that I know ask me questions, and I try to point out, obvious problems, and they don’t listen and they come up later and they’re like, it was the obvious problem. So I’m having that moment where it’s everything you guys have told me, it’s everything everyone has told me that I refuse to accept, which is that I will do better and go faster and farther if I can focus on just one thing.

Sarah: Oh no. Now we have to rescind the focus Myth episode.

Lee Zuvanich: We do,

Zach: Sometimes.

Lee Zuvanich: still,

Sarah: It’s, yeah.

Lee Zuvanich: doing more than everyone I know, but went from being able to do all this stuff well to drowning, I think, in part because my [00:12:00] agency started to lose clients, so I lost the ability to hire. I had a whole operations team. started doing all of their work. I had project managers and product owners. I had to do all of their work. Now I went through a coding bootcamp so I can also do the dev work. And I realized this week, oh, that means I just took on even more work. I’m grateful to be able to do it, but I am like this octopus with not enough arms.

And it was really cool to be an octopus, but I took on 20 things and I only have eight arms. I had a partner for four years helping me with the kids. I don’t now, I homeschool. That’s new. So things changed over the last two years and instead of being this person that could juggle everything, I’ve slowly just been dropping balls and I’ve had to start being, like systematically. And we talked about this in the focus episode, I think, right? Identifying which balls need to be dropped,

Zach: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s literally what we talked about before you joined us. That’s literally what Zach’s doing right now.

Zach: almost verbatim. You must have saw the script or something.

Lee Zuvanich: crazy.

Sarah: He, 

Lee Zuvanich: just hilarious. ’cause I [00:13:00] definitely didn’t.

I’ve got the successful agency that just landed a big med tech contract that I’ve been trying to land for two years. Just landed it, ready to go into that world. That’s exciting. But I’m trying to also scale down that agency’s expansiveness.

The fact that it was really thin across a lot of little projects before and just get really clear on what. My impact is going to be through Adva and if I end up rolling it in under Appsta, because I’m gonna need that same team to help with the code quality guarantees. And then now that I can work on the code and fix my app and get it ready for scale and take on users just realizing I’ve got a lot of things to do and I need to figure out where my focus is gonna be. Unfortunately, I can’t just do what I like to do, what we’ve talked about before, which is like, well, what gives me the most energy? What do I feel most creative , potential and, and vision for? I have to just be like, where’s the money? [00:14:00] I’m a single parent. So , it’s not the worst problem, but it’s still just humbling to be like, well, I can’t do it all, and. I gotta figure out what lines to cut.

Sarah: It’s interesting because you’re sort of doing the opposite of what I’ve done. I feel like you’ve always delegated better.

Lee Zuvanich: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: I’m not great at delegating and I feel like you have people you can delegate to. So you started out from that point and now you’re experiencing what it feels like to be me that does all the things

Lee Zuvanich: it’s

Sarah: I’m trying to go the direction you were previously where I’m delegating more stuff to other people which is actually really difficult when you can do.

All the things. You’re like, oh, I can do the development now. Yeah, like that’s always where I’ve been, where I’m at. Like I build everything. And so it’s dangerous because I can just go do the stuff instead of delegating the work. And it makes it impossible to scale. My scaling is still very intentional, [00:15:00] slow growth.

I have a very specific vision in mind, so it’s not even anything crazy, it’s just the fact that I have to stop. My natural inclination to just do stuff. ’cause I’m just a doer and a maker. So it’s interesting, you’ve flipped now, so now you’re seeing like what this side looks like and it’s always about balance.

Balance is, I feel like a dirty word. We can never achieve balance, but it’s about finding this thing in the middle. Someone used the term buoyancy. Don’t focus on balance, focus on ancy this week. And I was like, oh, that’s kinda an interesting idea, finding this middle ground where does this work for you?

How much are you delegating? How much are you doing? That’s one of the things I’ve been working on with process stuff this week. Let’s automate all the things. Can I automate creation of the brand guides? Huh. And then I was like, no, actually I shouldn’t do that.

I include a brand guide for every website project, because 99% of our clients don’t have them.

And if they do have them, they’re not usually very good. So you just get a brand guide as part of what we do now. And that’s one of the things where I’m [00:16:00] bringing my eye to this thing. A client sent me a logo recently and I’m like. It needs a little help. So I kind of just cleaned it up for him and I’m making a brain that’s like, here’s your single source of truth, here’s your logos, here’s your icons, here’s your colors, whatever.

That’s the thing where I have to decide, is this something I wanna delegate or automate? And the answer was actually no. That’s my personal touch on, let me look at what you have, audit this, and maybe make some tweaks and make it better, because that’s a foundational thing.

But do I need to personally create the website brief or does my project manager No. That I can absolutely automate. So looking at each individual thing that you’re doing, and then each individual task within that thing that you’re doing and being like, okay, which of these things do I need to do personally? Do I need to delegate and do I need to automate?

Zach: That’s probably the biggest piece is identifying what is the unique value presented there. ’cause some of that other stuff might fall to the wayside, but people really wanna, okay, Sarah’s been doing websites since [00:17:00] BC so let me get her feedback or whatever, and they want that piece of it.

People pay for their initial consultation, talk to me for 30 minutes or whatever. They’re getting the opportunity to talk to you and see from your perspective and your point of view.

Sarah: I’m working on an introductory offer right now.

Years ago I would do an in-person website consultation. Talking through what they needed or what they had. I would give them this full content writing document and site map and all this stuff, so I’m bringing that back and I’m working on refining that right now. And this is all the stuff that I want to be doing.

 That strategic conversation. But creating the feedback tool widget or something. If I can’t automate it, that’s getting delegated.

 So problem solving for me has been cutting out tedious admin work that could be done with technology. And then Zach’s yours was dropping everything that’s not

Zach: Yeah,

Sarah: a hundred percent in line with your goals, I guess. Is that how you’d say that?

Zach: [00:18:00] Everything that’s not moving towards what I perceive I want to be doing in life.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And then Lee, how would you sum yours up?

Lee Zuvanich: Just getting focused and like grieving the fact that I don’t have 20 arms and moving on with my life,

Sarah: I’m like thinking back at the episodes we’ve already done and we have an episode like dedicated to each of these

Lee Zuvanich: mm-hmm.

Sarah: that we’re in the middle of right now, which is just really fascinating.

Lee Zuvanich: Well, it is called founder problems.

Sarah: It means we’re doing our job

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah,

Sarah: success

Lee Zuvanich: back. We’re, we’re

Sarah: full circle.

Lee Zuvanich: problems, and then I think we’re solving them and

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Lee Zuvanich: them, and it takes time.

Sarah: We can talk to all those things in those full episodes ’cause this is literally what our weeks look like. 

This is more of a chatty episode, but can we come up with takeaways from the problems we’ve solved this week? 

Lee Zuvanich: If I had been [00:19:00] running my business with the assumption that everything was going to go wrong and the economy’s been bad. Everything’s been really hard for the last couple years. I was going to just run everything by the book, just on paper what makes me the most money, I would acquit everything and just gone and gotten another job in tech by now, like two years ago.

In it for the love of it, and that is where the problems come from, but I think if I can just stay the course. That’s also how they end up getting solved.

Two years ago I had the problem of too many noisy, needy clients that wouldn’t pay sometimes at all, or wouldn’t pay very much. I started shifting my business model slowly towards where I’m at today, where I actually have great clients and enterprise work coming in and things that are manageable and enjoyable I’m able to work on my startup myself and do the things that I want to do. It is all coming together. I [00:20:00] had to trust the process.

As much as I am having this moment of clarity and a little bit of panic, oh man, I gotta let go of some things. do it all. I think the heart of what I wanted is still there and it’s happening. It’s just happening slowly, a lot more slowly than it used to because of where we’re at in the economy and where people are at as buyers and business owners right now, which is who you know I serve, but keep the faith, it’s all a balancing act. why. From week to week, we’re like, now I’m on this end of the spectrum. 

Sarah: Yeah.

Lee Zuvanich: you gotta run back and forth balancing, know, on this board.

Zach: I think most things always goes way slower than you expect slower, and not the way that you anticipate. So I mean, as much as people like to plan everything is just a theory until you’re proven wrong, you know? I probably lean [00:21:00] more pessimistic or cynical in that way where I’m just like, ah, it’s not gonna work.

Just kind of starting from there. ’cause I think the one time that I was truly overly optimistic, I’ve never been more wrong in my life, so. I just, you know, nothing’s gonna happen. Just what happens,

Sarah: So wait, is your takeaway to be a pessimist?

Zach: Yeah. probably, I

Sarah: Okay.

Zach: sounded by be a pessimist.

Sarah: actually don’t disagree with that. I guess I would frame that as, do a pre-mortem and look at everything that can fail.

Lee Zuvanich: You guys.

Sarah: I don’t know. I’m a fan of the premier. How could this go wrong? And then let’s solve it in advance. Or maybe that’s just me doing too much. Automating.

Lee Zuvanich: keep the faith. be fine guys. It’ll be fine.

Sarah: Sorry. I guess that’s like the opposite of what you just said.

Lee Zuvanich: I have all of the money I need for my pre-seed soft circled already. I.

Sarah: Nice.

Lee Zuvanich: I may be doing exactly what I wanna be doing with all the money I need by August when [00:22:00] it’s supposed to land, but I’m also actually being pretty pessimistic, like you guys, I guess. I don’t

Zach: Yeah.

Lee Zuvanich: I am lining

consulting work and doing my own work on my startup in the meantime

one falls, it could take me another six months to raise.

Sarah: There’s a quote about acting as if the thing will succeed, but planning as if it’s not going to, or believing something will succeed. But that’s the vibe I’m hearing.

For both of you? Is be realistic when it comes to making plans. Don’t quit everything and sell everything as if this is gonna work out. Have a backup plan, but do proceed as if it’s gonna work out. And I agree with that. That’s two sides of the same coin in my mind.

If you didn’t believe it wasn’t gonna work why would you do it? Obviously you do believe it’s gonna work, but at the same time, don’t bet the farm.

Lee Zuvanich: Totally.

Sarah: Or whatever the modern equivalent of betting the farm is.

Zach: Yeah,

Sarah: the Bitcoin.

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah,

Zach: bet the Bitcoin.

Sarah: Don’t spend all your Bitcoin on a pizza.

Zach: Don’t bet the crypto.

Lee Zuvanich: The people who listen to [00:23:00] us are people who are probably often running a side hustle or

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Lee Zuvanich: trying to figure out how to, I. That is always the takeaway is keep things strategically in different baskets. Because like you were saying before, the social contract has been broken.

Sarah: Yeah.

Lee Zuvanich: can’t just go get a job and hope that everything will be okay anymore.

Sarah: Yeah, a hundred percent.

Lee Zuvanich: hope to succeed, plan to fail, and have a few other things going on the back burner, but not too many.

Sarah: Hope to succeed, plan to fail is good. That’s basically it.

Zach: Yeah.

Sarah: My takeaway is be more intentional about noticing the daily tasks that you do that are tedious and mono. I. Then think of how you can use technology to solve those problems. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot anyway, so I already knew some of the stuff I wanted to do and I just was making time for it this week. 

 Look for easy wins. If you are copy pasting your contact information from your CRM to Google [00:24:00] contacts that you use on your phone. Use Zapier integration. Set it up once and it will do it for you forever.

Automatically. That’s the kind of thing where I think you can get some easy wins you don’t have to think about it anymore.

Lee Zuvanich: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Sarah: Cool. Well, that’s what we got this week. Check us out online, follow us. Let us know what you think of this new episode because this is a new format and we will keep doing it to people like it.

It’s the real founder solving real problems half of our tagline. First section is we’re talking through the unscripted anti hussle conversations when we’re sharing education and trying to give takeaways for people like what we typically have been doing.

And then the second half of that is this is just us talking through our problems. So if you like it, let us know if you wanna hear more.