75% of Entrepreneurs Struggle With Delegation. This Framework Will Help You Master It.
Learn when to delegate, what to hand off first and how strategic delegation becomes the thing that drives growth long before you feel "ready" for it.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Key Takeaways
- Entrepreneurs get stuck in the trap of needing more capacity to grow but needing more growth to justify hiring, which keeps them overwhelmed and doing far too much themselves.
- Most founders wait too long to delegate for this reason. They try to wait until cash flow aligns with all other factors.
- Founders should delegate just 5-10 hours of work per week to start. Begin with the areas that free the most mental load and unlock the most capacity.
- Don’t view delegation as something that happens only after significant growth. Growth comes from delegation, not before it.
Every entrepreneur hits the same frustrating loop at some point — you need more capacity to grow, but you need more growth to justify the cost of delegation. So, so many entrepreneurs stay stuck in the middle, definitely overwhelmed, and probably on the path to burnout. They keep telling themselves they’ll hire once things stabilize, but they rarely do.
Most founders wait too long to delegate for this reason — trying to wait until their cash flow aligns with all the other factors. In fact, 75% of entrepreneurs struggle with delegation, while those entrepreneurs who do delegate see 100+ percentage points more growth than those who don’t.
In this article, I’ll break down a simple, practical framework to help you figure out exactly when to hire, what to delegate first, and how strategic delegation can become a revenue accelerator when done right.
If you’re stuck in the capacity dilemma, this is for you.
Related: The Real Reason You Struggle With Delegation — and How to Finally Fix It
Why founders delay delegation
Entrepreneurs generally avoid delegation because the decision feels expensive, emotional and like a big time commitment. What these entrepreneurs aren’t considering is the real cost of not making the hire, which is the time you lose by doing everything yourself.
When you’re spending your days chasing down fires and context-switching, you’re basically just running in place, and sometimes, barely holding it together.
So the real question isn’t “can I afford to hire?” It’s “what is it costing me not to?”