What I Got Wrong in the First 90 Days

The first 90 days of building Outlier Labs were exciting, stressful, chaotic, and honestly, full of mistakes. When you start something young, every opportunity feels important. Every client feels like progress. You want to grow quickly, prove yourself, hit revenue targets, and make things work somehow. In that phase, I made a lot of decisions too fast. Some worked out, many did not.

Looking back now, I think those mistakes shaped the company far more than the early wins did. They changed how we work, how we hire, how we communicate with clients, and what kind of projects we choose to take on. These were not polished learning experiences that sound good in hindsight. Some of them genuinely exhausted us, created unnecessary pressure, and forced us to rethink how we were operating as a team. But I am glad they happened early.

One of the biggest mistakes I made early on was taking projects simply because we wanted the revenue. At that stage, every inquiry feels valuable. You do not think too much about long-term fit or operational impact because your focus is mostly on growth. If a client was interested, I would try to make the project work somehow, even when the pricing, expectations, or communication already felt difficult from the beginning.

Some clients negotiated heavily on pricing but still expected premium-level output. They wanted the quality, revisions, speed, strategy, and support of a high-budget project while paying much less than what that work would usually cost. At first, I convinced myself that we could manage it. And technically, we did. The projects were delivered, clients got what they needed, and from the outside everything probably looked fine.

Internally, though, it came at a huge cost. To hit certain revenue targets, we started taking multiple projects simultaneously while still being the same size as a team. The workload increased, but the capacity did not. Everyone was juggling too many things at once, constantly switching between urgent tasks, revisions, calls, deadlines, and unexpected problems. That is when I realized something important: bad-fit projects are expensive even when they pay.

The quality started getting affected, not because the team lacked talent, but because nobody can consistently produce excellent work while overloaded all the time. That phase changed the way we operate completely. Now, we are much more selective about the projects we take on. I would rather deliver exceptional work for fewer clients than average work for many.

Another mistake I made early on was confusing constant activity with actual progress. In the beginning, I felt like we always needed to be moving fast. More calls, more meetings, more projects, more outreach, more everything. I thought if we slowed down even slightly, we would fall behind. A lot of young founders probably feel this pressure, especially online where it constantly seems like everyone else is scaling faster, building faster, and achieving more.

That mindset affected the way I made decisions. Sometimes I focused too much on immediate momentum instead of long-term sustainability. If the calendar was packed and everyone was busy, it felt like we were growing properly. But eventually I realized being overwhelmed and being productive are two very different things.

There is a point where excessive workload stops helping growth and starts reducing quality instead. You begin reacting to problems all day instead of thinking strategically. Important decisions get rushed. Creativity drops. Communication weakens. And internally, everything starts feeling heavier than it should. Now, I value clarity and sustainability much more than constant speed. Earlier, I thought successful companies moved fast all the time. Now I think the strongest companies know when to slow down, improve systems, and protect quality.

Another major mistake in the beginning was timeline management. I massively underestimated how unpredictable creative and technical work can be. A project that seems straightforward on paper can suddenly become complicated because of one bug, delayed feedback, changing requirements, or a small technical issue that affects multiple parts of the project.

Early on, my response to timeline pressure was not great. Instead of fixing the system, I would try to push the team harder. Faster revisions, faster fixes, tighter delivery windows. Not aggressively, but the pressure definitely existed. Over time, I realized rushing talented people rarely creates better work. It usually creates burnout and avoidable mistakes.

I also realized that unrealistic timelines damage client relationships too. In the beginning, I would sometimes underestimate timelines because I wanted to sound confident and fast. But when delays happen repeatedly, trust gets affected. It is far better to set realistic expectations upfront than to promise impossible speed and struggle later. Now, our approach is much more realistic. We leave room for unexpected delays, communicate timelines more clearly, and when workload increases consistently, I hire more instead of endlessly squeezing the same people.

This was probably one of the most frustrating lessons early on. A lot of clients genuinely do not fully know what they want when they approach you. And honestly, that is understandable. Sometimes they know they need a better website or better branding, but they cannot clearly explain what success actually looks like for them.

In the beginning, we handled this poorly. We would start projects too quickly without deeply understanding the business, goals, audience, or long-term vision. Everyone would feel aligned initially, but midway through the project, the direction would start changing constantly. New features would appear, sections would get reworked repeatedly, and priorities would suddenly shift. Eventually, the original scope barely existed anymore.

Now, before starting anything, I spend significantly more time understanding the client properly. I ask a lot more questions than I used to. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Who is your audience? What problem are we solving? What do you want people to feel when they see this? What does success look like for this project? Those conversations save weeks of confusion later. Clear scoping honestly changes everything. Clarity in the beginning prevents frustration in the middle.

Early on, I focused heavily on technical skill while hiring or working with people. Can they design well, code properly, edit effectively, and deliver quickly? Those things obviously matter, but I underestimated how important mindset and energy are inside a small team.

There were a few people we worked with who constantly carried a negative outlook toward problems. One bug would frustrate them completely. One additional fix would visibly ruin their mood. Every challenge felt emotionally heavy for them. And in small teams, energy spreads very quickly. One consistently negative mindset can quietly affect the entire environment.

Now, when building a team, I look for people who actually care about what they are creating. Not perfectionists. Not people pretending to be motivated all the time. Just people who take ownership and genuinely want to build something meaningful. I have also realized that skills can improve surprisingly fast when someone genuinely cares about the work. But attitude, ownership, and mindset are much harder to teach.

Another thing I got wrong early on was communication. Sometimes I assumed people understood things automatically because they made sense in my head. But clients misunderstood timelines, team members interpreted tasks differently, and expectations often remained unclear. Most operational problems were not actually technical problems. They were communication problems.

Now, I pay much more attention to clarity. Writing things down properly, confirming expectations, repeating priorities, documenting feedback, and making sure everyone is aligned before moving forward has become a major part of how we work. It sounds simple, but clear communication reduces chaos more than most people realize. Confusion is expensive. It wastes time, creates frustration, increases revisions, and slowly affects trust both internally and externally.

One thing I have learned is that people usually do not get frustrated by problems alone. They get frustrated when they feel uninformed or confused. That applies to both clients and teams.

One of the most rewarding things throughout this journey has been referrals from previous clients. Some of our best projects came through word of mouth, and referral-based projects feel completely different because the trust already exists before the conversation even starts. The closing process becomes smoother, communication feels easier, and there is already confidence in the work because someone else experienced it firsthand.

But referrals also tell you something deeper. They tell you whether people genuinely enjoyed working with you. Not just the final output, but the overall experience. Did communication feel smooth? Did the team care? Did we solve actual problems? Did the process feel professional? People only recommend you when the answer to those questions is yes.

For me personally, referrals became one of the strongest indicators that we were moving in the right direction. No marketing strategy feels better than a client voluntarily bringing another client to you. It validates more than just your work. It validates your process, your professionalism, your communication, and the trust you have built.

In the beginning, I focused heavily on moving fast. And speed does matter when you are building something early-stage. But I ignored systems for too long. A lot of things depended on memory instead of structure. Processes were not standardized properly, files were scattered sometimes, and workflows kept changing depending on the project. That approach works temporarily when the team is extremely small, but as workload increases, chaos increases too.

Now we focus much more on systems. Project management structures, documentation, workflows, communication channels, feedback systems, task tracking: all of these things matter far more than I realized initially. It sounds less exciting than startup hustle, but honestly, systems reduce stress more than motivation ever can. Good systems protect quality. They reduce confusion, improve communication, and make growth sustainable.

I think young founders sometimes avoid systems because they feel too corporate or unnecessary early on. But eventually, structure becomes essential if you want consistency. Without systems, growth becomes messy very quickly.

I think this is the part people talk about the least. Building something sounds exciting externally, but internally it can become emotionally exhausting sometimes. You constantly question yourself. Are we growing fast enough? Did we make the right decision? Should we have rejected that project? Are clients actually happy? Is the team doing okay?

And because founders usually try to stay optimistic publicly, a lot of those thoughts stay internal. The first 90 days especially felt emotionally unpredictable. One good client call could make the entire week feel amazing, while one difficult situation could suddenly make everything feel unstable.

Over time, I realized emotional stability matters a lot in leadership. You cannot make good long-term decisions if you are constantly reacting emotionally to short-term situations. That is still something I am learning honestly.

If I could restart those first 90 days, I would probably say no more often, hire more carefully, build systems earlier, and stop treating burnout like a normal part of growth. But at the same time, I also know those mistakes taught me lessons I probably would not have understood otherwise.

Today, Outlier Labs operates very differently because of those early experiences. We think more carefully about project fit, quality, communication, timelines, and culture. And honestly, we are still learning. I do not think building a company ever becomes perfectly figured out. Every stage introduces new challenges, new responsibilities, and new mistakes to learn from.

But those first 90 days taught me something important: a strong company is not built only through ambition. It is built through reflection, self-awareness, and understanding what kind of work, culture, and standards you want attached to your name long-term. And I think that understanding changed Outlier Labs more than any early revenue milestone ever could.