The loneliness of being the only one who knows how it all works

Being indispensable feels great.

For about a week.

After that, it feels like being the only person with the keys to a building where something is always beeping.

That's what it's like to be the technical founder of a small company. You built it. You know where everything is. Why that server is configured that way. Why that plugin can't be updated yet. Why that client's site breaks if you touch the third line of a file nobody else has ever opened.

All of it lives in one place.

Your head.

The kind of lonely nobody talks about

When people talk about founder loneliness, they usually mean the big decisions. Hiring, firing, money.

I'm lucky there. I have Yeray. We've been friends for longer than we've been partners, and on the big decisions I'm never alone.

The loneliness I mean is smaller and more stubborn. It's technical. It's knowing that if something breaks at eleven at night, there's exactly one person who can understand why. And that person is going to have to put his shoes back on.

It's not dramatic. Nobody writes songs about it. It just sits there, like a phone you can never quite put on silent.

The worst part of being the only one who knows how it works isn't the work. It's that you can never fully leave the room.

How you end up there

Nobody plans it. It happens one shortcut at a time.

It's faster to fix it yourself than to explain it. So you fix it yourself. It's faster to remember than to write it down. So you remember. Every one of those decisions is reasonable. Together, they build a company that only works when you're awake.

There's also a less flattering reason, and I might as well admit it. Being the only one who knows feels good. It makes you necessary. And for someone who learned everything alone, at night, being necessary can feel a lot like being worth something.

That's a trap. A comfortable one, with nice cushions. But a trap.

What I'm trying instead

This year we've started delegating things I used to do myself, like design. It's a small step, but it taught me something: the hard part wasn't letting go of the work. It was explaining it.

Because to explain something, you have to get it out of your head. And once it's out of your head, it's no longer only yours.

So the plan isn't heroic. It's boring. Write things down. Why that server is set up that way. Why that plugin waits. Where the weird things live. Not for some future team I don't have yet. For the version of me that will forget, and for anyone who might one day have to answer the phone instead of me.

I suspect it'll take years. Most of what a small company knows isn't in documents. It's in habits.

But every page I write is a room I can leave.

Being indispensable felt like power.

It turns out it was just a very respectable way of never switching off.

P.S. If you work with me and you've ever wondered why I answer so fast at night: this post is the answer. Please don't take it as an invitation.