When Everything is on Fire, Founders Sometimes Struggle to See the Wood for the Trees
In 1949, a crew of elite smoke-jumpers parachuted into Montana’s Mann Gulch to fight what looked like a routine wildfire. But within hours, the fire turned deadly. As the flames roared up the slope, their leader, Wagner Dodge, made a radical move: he lit a fire of his own. By burning the grass ahead of him, he created a patch of scorched earth the wildfire couldn’t cross. He lay in the ashes as the main fire swept over.
He survived.
Most of his team didn’t.
Not because they were slower or less brave, but because they didn’t follow him. Dodge’s move was unfamiliar. It wasn’t part of their training. It didn’t look like survival. And perhaps most tragically, many couldn’t bring themselves to drop their tools—axes, saws, packs. They’d spent years mastering them. The tools were the job. Letting go felt like failure. So they ran—weighted down by their identities—until the fire caught them.
Founders do the same thing all the time.
In the early stages of a startup, everything is on fire. There’s pressure from investors, users, advisors, your own expectations. So you do what you’ve been trained to do: you build. You add features. You ship faster. You try to close that one deal that might save you.
But what if the thing that saves you isn’t building more?
What if it’s stopping to think differently?
The “Next Feature Fallacy”
Founders often fall into what I call the next feature fallacy—the belief that one more thing on the roadmap will fix it. That the next release, the next integration, the next customer-requested tweak will finally unlock growth.
It rarely does.
Why? Because the problem isn’t what you haven’t built yet. It’s what you’re refusing to question:
The original idea you sold to investors
The positioning your first customers responded to
The market you assumed you were in
You’ve been told to “listen to your users” and “iterate fast.” But if all you're iterating on is a flawed premise, you’re not moving forward—you’re just moving faster in the wrong direction.
Identity Is a Trap
Like the firefighters clinging to their tools, founders often cling to their early identity:
“We’re a social app for X.”
“We’re the Notion for Y.”
“We’re solving this exact problem.”
But markets shift. Customer behavior surprises you. The thing you thought was a feature turns out to be the whole product. Or worse, nobody cares.
And yet, you keep building.
Not because you don’t see the smoke—but because you’re committed. Emotionally. Publicly. Financially. You’ve promised your team, your investors, your users. Pivoting feels like letting them down.
So instead of lighting the escape fire, you run uphill with the gear strapped to your back.
The Courage to Drop Your Tools
What saved Wagner Dodge wasn’t technical brilliance. It was the courage to act differently in the face of overwhelming pressure. He rethought the situation—instantly—and acted.
Early-stage founders need the same mental flexibility. Not just the willingness to experiment, but the humility to admit when the current path isn’t working.
Ask yourself:
What assumptions are you clinging to?
What have you built that’s weighing you down?
What would you stop doing if you weren’t afraid of looking like you were lost?
Your Escape Fire Might Not Look Like Progress
It might look like pausing new features to fix onboarding.
It might look like narrowing your focus instead of expanding it.
It might look like revisiting your core positioning or switching customer segments altogether.
These moves don’t always look like progress. But sometimes, they’re the only thing that will get you out alive.
In a fire, the fastest way forward might be sideways.
Don’t let your roadmap become your trap. Drop the tools that no longer serve you. Rethink before you’re forced to.
Your startup’s survival might depend on it.