{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-js","path":"/articles/your-flywheel-isnt-spinning-yet/","result":{"data":{"post":{"id":"82b16376-e990-58f9-94a0-cd7e948c4663","html":"

Zoom into a fern leaf. Same shape repeats. The whole plant, encoded in every branch, encoded again in every smaller branch off that branch.

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Coastlines do this. Rivers do this. Compounding interest does this too — Einstein's eighth wonder, and it's not really about money. It's the same tiny pattern, running over and over, until the scale of it stops looking small.

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Here's something I teach on day one inside The Software Essentialist, before architecture, before patterns, before any code at all. Three things:

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Abstraction. The feedback loop. And energy, or tension, seeking resolution.

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That's it. Those three are the metaphysics underneath systems thinking, and systems thinking is where every developer is headed whether they know it yet or not. You start out writing code. You end up designing systems. Same shape, bigger scale, exactly like the fern.

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Systems

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If I think about what it is I do, I really just build systems and run them over and over. My own workflow with Claude, a digital product, my own businesses, my reticular activating system, or helping clients grow their SaaS. Build the system to generate an outcome, then run it on repeat.

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Last month I put a few thousand dollars into a Facebook ads funnel for my products. It spat out 2x. It'll probably do the same this month.

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This is what's possible when you think in systems and build flywheels.

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Flywheels for Business Systems (this includes SaaS)

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At one point I decided I was going to master business at a systems thinking level. I wanted to be able to see what wasn't working, debug it, fix it, and make things run again.

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One of the most important concepts in any business is the flywheel. Three parts: traffic, sales, delivery. Put something in — content, an ad, a conversation — and it spits more back out, each part feeding the next, around and around.

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\"The

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If you're building a SaaS product, you need something to sell, at least one core job to be done, and a way to send traffic and turn it into sales.

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Some of you are deep in the Five Phases of Craftship right now, and that's exactly where you should be. This one isn't for you yet — keep going.

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This one's for the rest of you. Building your own feedback loop with Claude, or building your own product, or trying to.

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My client Eric has been systematically building his flywheel, a SaaS product. He's built something real and useful, and we're about to open up the traffic side now that the foundation's in place.

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Last time I stood where he's standing right now — foundation built, about to turn the traffic on — I did $300k in 30 days.

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I can't overstate how much feedback loops matter. You're playing with nature's forces here.

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The mistake almost everyone makes with their own flywheel — doesn't matter if it's an app, a book, a coaching offer — is spending their hours making one part of the wheel heavier. More features. More polish. Meanwhile the wheel isn't even spinning yet.

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I'm talking about spending an entire year on something without ever finding out if you can reach the right people for it. Or building something fast and shipping it to crickets, then moving on to the next thing. Neither one works.

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A few weeks ago a developer asked me for help with exactly this. He wanted to join The Abstractionist but couldn't afford it at the time, so I offered to package up the key frameworks, the mistakes to avoid, and the systems we use, for $97. He agreed. Paid the invoice. Then I built it. Here's what he said:

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\"WhatsApp

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How about that.

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The result is a book I've been calling Sell First: the exact mechanism behind everything above — how I've sold every digital product I've made past half a million dollars, sometimes before a line of it existed. (I don't say that to brag. It's been brutal to learn these lessons, and I've paid over $50k of my own money to coaches and mentors along the way.)

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I reckon it can shave months off whatever you're building. It's normally $97 — this week, it's $27.

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Get Sell First — $27

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To Mastery,
\nKhalil

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PS: If you're past the book already and want this installed directly into what you're building — whether you've got something live with no real engine behind it, or you're still deciding what to build at all — I've got 3 spots this week to work on it with you 1:1. Book a call here.

","fields":{"slug":"/articles/your-flywheel-isnt-spinning-yet/","readingTime":{"text":"4 min read"}},"headings":[{"depth":2,"id":"Systems","value":"Systems"},{"depth":2,"id":"Flywheels-for-Business-Systems-this-includes-SaaS","value":"Flywheels for Business Systems (this includes SaaS)"}],"frontmatter":{"seriesId":null,"date":"2026-08-31T19:33:00-04:00","updated":"2026-08-31T19:33:00-04:00","title":"Your Flywheel Isn't Spinning Yet","templateKey":"article","description":"Fractals, feedback loops, and flywheels. Why the same tiny pattern that builds a fern also builds a business — and the one mistake that keeps most people's flywheel from ever spinning.","tags":["Systems Thinking","Metaphysics","Flywheels","Business","SaaS"],"image":"/img/letters/your-flywheel-isnt-spinning-yet/fern.jpg","category":"The Metaphysics","anchormessage":null,"withInlineTableOfContents":null}},"allTableOfContents":{"edges":[{"node":{"internal":{"content":"{\n \"seriesId\": \"client-side-architecture-basics\",\n \"tableOfContents\": [\n {\n \"pageId\": \"introduction\",\n \"name\": \"Welcome\",\n \"slug\": \"/articles/client-side-architecture/introduction\"\n },\n {\n \"pageId\": \"architecture\",\n \"name\": \"I. Architecture\",\n \"slug\": \"/articles/client-side-architecture/architecture\",\n \"description\": \"Understanding what we need from a client-side architecture.\",\n \"anchors\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"We-need-a-shared-language-to-talk-about-client-side-architecture\",\n \"name\": \"Shared language\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"Client-side-needs--testability-flexibility-and-maintainability\",\n \"name\": \"Client-side needs\"\n }\n ]\n },\n {\n \"pageId\": \"principles\",\n \"name\": \"II. Principles\",\n \"slug\": \"/articles/client-side-architecture/principles\",\n \"description\": \"Influential design principles that we'll use as the philosophy for our design.\"\n },\n {\n \"pageId\": \"layers\",\n \"name\": \"III. Layers\",\n \"slug\": \"/articles/client-side-architecture/layers\",\n \"description\": \"Understanding the layers/concerns and their responsibilities in a client-side application.\",\n \"anchors\": [\n { \n \"id\": \"Presentation-components\", \n \"name\": \"Presentation components\"\n },\n { \n \"id\": \"UI-logic\", \n \"name\": \"UI logic\"\n },\n { \n \"id\": \"Containercontroller\", \n \"name\": \"Container/controller components\"\n },\n { \n \"id\": \"Interaction-layer\", \n \"name\": \"Interaction layer\"\n },\n { \n \"id\": \"-Networking--data-fetching-infrastructure\", \n \"name\": \"Networking & data fetching\"\n }\n ]\n },\n {\n \"pageId\": \"conclusion\",\n \"name\": \"IV. Conclusion\",\n \"slug\": \"/articles/client-side-architecture/conclusion\",\n \"description\": \"Let's recap and discuss next steps.\"\n }\n ]\n}\n"}}},{"node":{"internal":{"content":"{\n \"seriesId\": \"solid-principles\",\n \"tableOfContents\": [\n {\n \"name\": null,\n \"pageId\": \"solid-typescript\",\n \"slug\": null,\n \"anchors\": [\n {\n \"id\": \"S-Single-Responsibilty-Principle\",\n \"name\": \"Single Responsibility Principle\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"Open-Closed-Principle\",\n \"name\": \"Open-Closed Principle\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"Liskov-Substition-Principle\",\n \"name\": \"Liskov Substitution Principle\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"Interface-Segregation-Principle\",\n \"name\": \"Interface Segregation Principle\"\n },\n {\n \"id\": \"Dependency-Inversion-Principle\",\n \"name\": \"Dependency Inversion Principle\"\n }\n ]\n }\n ]\n}"}}}]}},"pageContext":{"id":"82b16376-e990-58f9-94a0-cd7e948c4663","slug":"/articles/your-flywheel-isnt-spinning-yet/"}}}