Are You Facing a Small-Tweaks or Big-Change Kind of Problem?

Knowing the difference is half the way to a solution.

🎶 Quick note before we dive in: I’m currently looking to interview 10-15 freelancers & small business owners (solo or small team) who want to level up the business side of what they do (pricing, offers, systems, strategy, scaling, all that good stuff). I’m exploring a new direction for my business and testing how my experience in management consulting can best support smaller, service-based businesses. If that sounds like you (or someone you know), I’d love to chat! You can learn more and book a time to chat here. Thanks so much! 💛

This week, I fell down a rabbit hole learning about the business behind StoryLearning and the founder Olly Richards’ newsletter—and one idea especially stuck with me. It’s a simple framework, but one that immediately shifted how I think about solving problems in my own business.

Olly explains that there are two types of improvements:

• Big tests that can completely change what you're doing.

• Incremental gains that refine what already works.

The problem? Most of us default to small tweaks even when it’s clear our current approach isn’t working. Sometimes, we need to stop polishing what’s broken and dare to try something entirely new.

That got me thinking about how this ties into one of the most powerful concepts I’ve shared recently: focusing on the bottleneck in your business.

If your business isn’t growing the way you want it to, chances are there's one key constraint holding it back. That’s your bottleneck—and identifying it is the fastest way to know where to focus your energy.

But once you've found it, the next question becomes: are you facing a small-tweaks or big-change kind of problem?

• If your current approach mostly works but needs refining or scaling → go for incremental gains.

• If it’s not working at all → don’t waste time optimizing. Try something bold and different.

This helped me put words to something I’ve been noticing in the YouTube world, too. Some creators keep showing up and putting in the work but get stuck making endless variations of an idea that hasn’t truly clicked. Often, it’s because they’ve been told to “niche down” too early. But when your videos don’t yet show product–market fit, the better strategy is to experiment widely with styles and topics until something starts to resonate.

So here’s a question worth asking: What’s a problem you’ve been trying to solve with small tweaks—when it might actually call for a big change?

xx
Anna

P.S. If you’re a freelancer or small business owner who wants to level up the business side of your work, I’d really love to chat! Don’t forget to book your interview slot here :)

DIY Business Accelerator: Vision & Personal Brand (Week 1)

In case you’re new here: I’m running a DIY Business Accelerator for myself, a 12-week sprint to bring more clarity, structure, and momentum to my business. Through a series of small, public experiments I’m hoping to design, validate, and launch my signature offering and sign my first ideal client. Each week, I’m sharing a behind-the-scenes video update of how it’s going.

Week 1 of my DIY Business Accelerator didn’t quite go to plan, in the best way. I moved faster than expected, tackled what I had planned for week 1 and 2, and even started on week 3. I can already tell this process will be way more iterative than the linear plan I made and I will probably return to some of my earlier decisions as I learn more. The biggest shift was getting clear on what I don’t want from my business and letting myself design around that. I also refined my messaging by ranting (highly recommend), and I’m now knee-deep in defining and testing my ideal client profile which includes the interviews I mentioned above. I share more in this week’s video update:

Watch Previous Updates:

• Week 0: Kicking Off the DIY Business Accelerator

• Week 1: Creating My Vision & Personal Brand (this week)