Hustle Theatre

Why agency founders delay their product dreams and how to break the cycle.

The trouble with really going for it on the product side when you have an agency to run is that, well… you have an agency to run. You know that ultimately you will do it, but right now the time isn’t quite right. So you experiment with a couple of MVPs, keep your hand in, read up about related stuff and bide your time.

You tell yourself, “not today” rather than “not ever” and that somehow makes things seem OK. Kind of keeps the dream alive.

But the problem with that is, ‘the perfect day’ to go for it on the product side never comes. When we decided that our time was now to push through on our SaaS and get rid of our agency, it wasn’t so much a revelation, it was terrifying. It was exciting, too. Because up until then, we’d been engaging in what I’ve called ‘Hustle Theatre’. I hadn’t realised it at the time and not even after. In fact, it’s only become clear from my current position of calm having fully-exited the SaaS I co-created.

What is Hustle Theatre?

It’s the constant performance of ‘busy-ness’ and forward motion. Where you’re always reacting, always racing, always just one big push away from finally being able to focus.

It feels productive. It looks impressive. But it’s just motion, not momentum.

It is, in effect, a way to put off what you deep down know you want to do.

How does this show up in practice? Endless meetings, writing docs or building spreadsheets that nobody but you ever pays attention to, attending events, sending LinkedIn connections to elicit more (endless) meetings, jumping on calls, coming up with new processes and structures, half-baked MVPs, more meetings, burning the candle at both ends… just lots and lots of work.

Meanwhile, the thing you actually want: the focus, the product, the predictability, the freedom, the growth, the exit… stays just out of reach.

Hustle Theatre is 90% for show, even if the main audience member is you. You kid yourself that you’re working hard and being effective and that’s what’s going to drive things forward, but you end up standing still.

Life before ScreenCloud

Running the agency became increasingly manic. I genuinely feared for my health at times. I remember sitting in reception one morning, waiting to go into a meeting, and I could feel my heart pulsing in my neck. Not from nerves about the meeting, but from the weight of everything else I wasn’t doing.

It wasn’t healthy. But it also wasn’t deliberate. I’d confused overwork with redemption, as if making myself ill might somehow make up for the agency’s struggles. It felt like penance for not having cracked the next thing yet.

When we finally sold the agency and shifted our focus fully to ScreenCloud, I expected relief. But what surprised me was the clarity: how different it felt to point all our energy in one direction, rather than burning out trying to keep every plate spinning.

With hindsight, that was the first crack in the Hustle Theatre façade. We weren’t necessarily working less, but we were finally working on something with real momentum.

I only fully realised this recently

Exiting ScreenCloud earlier this year gave me choices about how I spend my time. What I expected was rest. Rest from worry and rest from a drive to do as much as I could to make as much as I could. What I actually got was clarity.

I started noticing how much of my previous work life was performance. Proposals that were ignored. Meetings that changed nothing. Being ‘on’ all the time, not because it helped, but because it signalled that I cared.

But care doesn’t scale. Attention does.

And the product business you want to build? It doesn’t need your plate-spinning.
It needs your clear, undivided attention. What you really need is some space and some peace to make this happen. Imagine if, instead of filling up your week with agghhhhhhh meetings, you were able to sit and think deeply. It’s not easy.

Finding stillness (and using it)

The closest I got to it in my old life was when I rented an AirBnB in Norwich on my own for a few days with the express intention of finishing writing my book. It felt weird. But that forced stillness made me incredibly productive (in a helpful way). I wasn’t in meetings. I wasn’t ‘available’. And I got more meaningful work done in three days than in the previous three months.

Today, alongside sitting on a few SaaS boards, I’m spending more of my time painting.

As a self-deprecating Brit, it still feels a bit cringey to call myself an artist (work in progress…). But what I’ve noticed is this: I need the same calm stillness to create art as I did when I wrote my book alone in that Airbnb in Norwich. Not once. Every time.

I’ve rented a studio on a farm. I drive (or walk) out, put on some music, make a coffee, and just sit for a while, looking at what I’m working on, deciding what comes next. I carve out these days and fiercely protect them from being encroached upon.

It’s quiet. I’m on my own. It’s weird.
But it works.

If you’re stuck

If you recognise some of this in your own lack of momentum, where you just can’t get the time to really focus on what you want to do ultimately, ask yourself:

“Is it really a time issue, or am I stuck in performative Hustle Theatre for a business I’m secretly trying to outgrow?”

You don’t need a week off to get started.
You need three protected hours.
One brave conversation.
A commitment to create before you react.

That’s it. That’s the first step out.