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Sunday, December 28, 2025

Two-Way Doors

Founder FM

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There's a mental model that changed how I make decisions.

It's called the two-way door principle.

Some decisions are one-way doors. Once you walk through, you can't walk back. Hiring a co-founder. Taking venture funding. Pivoting your entire business. These deserve careful thought. These deserve hesitation.

But most decisions? They're two-way doors. You can try something, see if it works, and reverse it if it doesn't. Launching a feature. Changing your pricing page. Trying a new marketing channel.

The problem is, we treat everything like a one-way door.

We agonize over button colors. We spend weeks debating copy changes. We let reversible decisions paralyze us because we're afraid of making the wrong choice.

Here's the truth: If you can undo it, just do it. Ship it. Test it. Learn from it. The data you get from action is worth more than the comfort you get from deliberation.

I wasted months on decisions that could have been experiments. Months I could have spent learning instead of worrying.

So before your next decision, ask yourself: Is this a one-way door or a two-way door?

If it's two-way — stop thinking and start walking.

This is Founder FM. Most doors open both ways.

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Honest reflections on building products.

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