When something isn't working, women founders often respond by pushing harder. Longer hours, more personal involvement, greater sacrifice. It's an understandable response — effort has always worked before. Determination and hard work are how you built this business in the first place.
The statistics tell the story: UK small business founders work an average of 51-hour weeks, with tech founders averaging 60 hours and food and drink sector founders reaching 57 hours. Meanwhile, 75% of self-employed workers report experiencing burnout — and notably, research shows this burnout is less about hours worked and more about feelings of powerlessness and loss of control.
But there's a ceiling to what effort can achieve. And most founders hit that ceiling without realising it. They just feel increasingly exhausted, increasingly stretched, increasingly like they're running as fast as they can just to stay in place.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: if working harder was going to fix things, it would have fixed them by now. You've already proven you can work hard. You've already demonstrated determination, sacrifice, and commitment. If those things were sufficient, you wouldn't be struggling.
The problem isn't effort. It's structure. The business has grown, but the way you run it hasn't evolved. You're using the same approaches, the same systems (or lack of systems), the same patterns that worked when the business was smaller. Those approaches made sense at £100k. They don't make sense at £500k or £1m.
This is a structural problem, and structural problems don't respond to effort. You can't work your way out of a system that requires more from you than is sustainable. You can only change the system.
I see founders who are working 60-hour weeks, who've sacrificed weekends and holidays and evenings, who've given everything to their business — and it's still not enough. That's not because they're not trying hard enough. It's because they're trying to solve a structural problem with personal sacrifice.
The shift I help founders make is from effort to systems. Instead of you remembering to chase invoices, a system that handles it automatically. Instead of you holding all the financial information in your head, dashboards that give you visibility without effort. Instead of you being involved in every decision, frameworks that allow good decisions to be made without you.
This means proper financial infrastructure: forecasting, reporting, and analysis that happens automatically rather than requiring your constant attention. It means operational clarity: documented processes, clear responsibilities, and decision-making frameworks that work whether you're there or not.
The goal isn't necessarily to work less — though most founders find they do. The goal is to ensure the business's success isn't dependent on your personal exhaustion. To build something sustainable. To create capacity for growth that doesn't require more sacrifice.
You've already proven you can work hard. Now it's time to prove you can work smart. And that starts with recognising that more effort isn't the answer — better structure is.
