Business Game Essays — Issue #4
Business isn’t a race.
It’s a game.
But most people misunderstand when the game actually begins.
They think it starts when they:
launch a website
post content
build a funnel
hire a team
That’s already mid-game.
Those are moves you make after a decision has been made.
The real beginning happens earlier.
Much earlier.
LOADING
Every game has a loading screen.
A quiet phase where nothing looks like progress is happening.
No score.
No feedback.
No visible momentum.
But everything important is being set.
In business, LOADING is the part nobody names.
The part without applause.
Without metrics.
Without certainty.
It’s the phase before commitment.
The phase where you’re not trying to win,
you’re trying to understand the game you’re about to play.
Most people skip LOADING.
Not because they’re careless.
But because starting feels productive.
Motion feels safer than stillness.
Activity feels like progress.
Shipping feels like proof.
So they rush.
They confuse motion with learning.
Activity with clarity.
Urgency with importance.
But LOADING is where the real work actually happens.
This is where you:
choose the right game
test one move quietly
let reality respond
pay attention to signal
resist the urge to scale too early
It’s where you find out whether something has legs,
before you build the entire machine around it.
Why skipping LOADING costs momentum
Skipping LOADING rarely causes immediate failure.
Instead, it creates misalignment.
You commit too early.
To the wrong market.
The wrong constraints.
The wrong pace.
The wrong kind of work for who you actually are.
Once you’ve pressed “Start Game” on the wrong save file, everything gets heavier.
More sunk cost.
More identity attached.
More resistance to stopping.
This is where momentum quietly dies.
Not in dramatic collapse,
but in slow exhaustion.
Most people think they’re playing the game.
But they’re not.
They’re optimising something they never validated.
Scaling something they don’t enjoy.
Building systems around assumptions they never tested.
They didn’t fail at business.
They just never finished loading.
The Business Game has three states
LOADING
Choosing the game.
Testing one move.
Building conviction without pressure.
PLAYING
Selling deliberately.
Improving signal.
Simple systems.
OPTIMISING
Scale.
Team.
Tooling.
Most people jump straight to OPTIMISING.
They buy tools.
Copy frameworks.
Chase outcomes.
I specialise in LOADING.
Not because it’s slow.
But because it’s precise.
LOADING is how you avoid building a life around the wrong business.
It’s how you protect momentum before it’s fragile.
Energy before it’s scarce.
Time before it matters more.