Ever been stuck between two bad options?
You’ve got data but not enough.
Intuition but not clarity. And the clock’s ticking.
Welcome to the gray zone where every founder lives.
General Colin Powell called it the 40/70 Rule, and it’s one of the best decision-making frameworks I’ve ever used with founders shifting from operator to CEO.
Here’s the rule:
When you have less than 40% of the information, you’re guessing.
When you wait for more than 70%, you’re stalling.
Your job? Decide when you’re in that 40–70 window and pull the trigger.
Because leadership isn’t about making perfect decisions.
It’s about making enough good decisions fast enough to keep momentum alive.
Step 1: Understand What Game You’re Playing
In SaaS and ecommerce, the founder’s early advantage is speed.
You out-iterate, out-hustle, out-experiment.
But as your company grows, that speed turns on you.
You start drowning in options from pricing tests and product features to marketing bets and hiring calls.
And what once felt like momentum now feels like mental quicksand.
Here’s the shift: Operators crave certainty. CEOs create it.
You’ll never have perfect information. You’ll never get universal agreement.
If you wait until it’s safe to decide, someone else already has.
Action Step:
For every major decision, ask:
- What’s the minimum data I need to make this call responsibly?
- What’s the maximum delay I can afford before opportunity cost outweighs accuracy?
That’s your 40–70 range.
Step 2: Build a “Decision Dashboard”
Think of your brain like a CPU. It overheats when it processes too many open loops.
The fix? Externalize your decision load.
Build a simple Decision Dashboard: one page where every upcoming decision lives.
Here’s what it includes:
- Decision Name: e.g., “Should we raise now or in Q2?”
- Status: Waiting / Gathering Info / Ready / Decided
- Info Confidence (0–100%)
- Impact: Low, Medium, High
- Deadline: When the decision must be made
You’ll start noticing patterns.
You’re gathering data forever on low-impact decisions and rushing through high-impact ones.
Once you see the imbalance, you can fix it.
Pro Tip:
Set a “decide by” date for every open decision. The date forces closure, and closure creates momentum.
Step 3: Upgrade from Perfection to Precision
Perfectionism is a startup killer.
You don’t need perfect answers, you need accurate-enough ones that can be tested.
Powell’s brilliance was in understanding that you don’t fix bad decisions by avoiding them, you fix them by revising fast.
That’s the difference between founders who scale and those who stall.
The 40/70 Rule gives you permission to move and confidence to correct course later.
Action Step:
When you hit 40–70% confidence, make the call. Then commit to a post-decision review:
- What did we assume?
- What actually happened?
- What will we adjust next time?
This turns every decision into a feedback loop not a failure point.
Step 4: Train Your Intuition Like a Muscle
Here’s the secret most data-driven founders forget:
Intuition isn’t magic. It’s compressed experience.
The more cycles you run through the 40/70 loop, the sharper your instincts become.
Soon, your gut isn’t guessing, it’s pattern-matching.
That’s why good CEOs don’t get faster by working harder.
They get faster by building a trusted internal compass.
To do that, start documenting your intuition:
- Write down what your gut says before making a decision.
- Revisit those notes later.
- Measure your gut’s accuracy over time.
You’ll be shocked how precise your instincts become once you start tracking them.
Step 5: Create a Culture That Decides
A founder who waits kills velocity.
A team that waits kills culture.
Your company mirrors your decision habits.
If you waffle, they hesitate.
If you decide with clarity and humility, “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t, and here’s what we’re doing”, they follow.
That’s leadership.
This is why tenured corporate executives struggle in startup environments. It’s a speed in decision mismatch.
Action Step:
Run a weekly 15-minute “Decision Debrief” with your leadership team.
Ask:
- What decisions are stuck?
- What’s blocking them?
- Who owns unblocking them?
You’ll be amazed how much faster your organization moves once you normalize deciding in motion.
The Founder-to-CEO Takeaway
The 40/70 Rule is more than a decision formula.
It’s a mindset shift from seeking certainty to creating clarity.
That’s what separates operators from CEOs.
You’re not paid to know everything.
You’re paid to choose and course-correct faster than the market changes.
The founders who scale are those who make peace with incomplete information and trust their ability to adapt.
So the next time you’re staring down a tough call, ask yourself:
“Do I have at least 40% of the info? Less than 70%? Then it’s go time.”
Because in business, indecision is still a decision, it just costs more.
Final Reflection
What’s one decision you’ve been delaying that’s sitting right in your 40–70 window?
Make it today.
Then watch how clarity compounds.
