Founder overwhelmed with a complex project.

Ok. Firstly, take a break for a week and do anything but work.

Secondly, remove all the distractions that is not adding any value.

Third, cut down things that are not adding as much value as you'd like.

Four, break down and categorise your tasks into "Must do" and "Can do".

Five, throw away the "can do" tasks and only focus on the "must do"

Thanks for reading to my TED talk. LOL.

I'm in the same boat. I'm building a platform for education too.Found myself procrastinating a lot. I don't work on it everyday but have to push myself if i want to get tings done.

For not a lot being “built” it’s an amazing achievement that your generating MRR so soon, congrats!

Unfortunately no one can tell you how to be the CEO of your company. You can certainly lean on people for advice and you should. Contact some startup CEO’s for a chat most will be happy to share advice and the ones that don’t you’re better off without their advice. Also don’t pay people unless your willing to pay a lot, the cheaper they are the less honest or experienced they will be. At the end of the day you have to make decisions and live with those decisions good or bad. Just do your best and do your best to make those decisions quickly.

Here’s my advice, take it or leave it 😀
If I were you I’d pick the role you can have most impact on and delegate the rest. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. There’s a lot of people that will do an ok website for a reasonable cost. Do you need email marketing and customer service systems yet? Really question what is essential and focus on that and be happy to have things that you could have done better yourself knowing that not doing them yourself allowed you to do XY or Z that was essential to moving your company forward and growing.

Also if it all needs to get done then tell everyone on the team (assuming there is a number of you including the contractor ) to take something from your list and do it or find/hire someone to do it and manage it themselves. You’re not god (or some other mythical creature with powers). If they’re waiting around for you to tell them what to do then you need a new team.

Best of luck, you can do it.

#1 You absolutely can tell everyone "bare with me for a few months" while I build out all these systems and processes. In fact you should tell them 6 months at least.

#2 Use software to help you track things. Yes of course I'm biased on this point because I sell a system designed for automating process but still think about it - everyone always says tools don't matter its the people and they are full of shit. They say things like that because they love meetings and have time for endless of them.

Read http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html - endless meetings are never going to be your thing nor should they be. A lot of your stress is coming from bending to expectations of conforming to standards that - if you follow them - will likely end your startup anyway.

When I got my first managerial position in corporate at 24, I read this book. It's a good primer. It sounds like you're going from "I do everything myself" AKA an operator... to someone who has to delegate more.

This line is weird to me: All of this, I can do myself but it'll take time.

I mean, who have you hired and why aren't they doing stuff?

So you're going through the basic growing pains of learning to manage for the first time. The first thing you'll learn about managing people: They don't do what you've asked them to do. Hiring is very, very difficult. For some roles if you're batting 300 you're a rock star. That means the majority of people you hire won't work out. Maybe that's what's happening with your project manager. On the other hand, maybe you've just got to learn to delegate better. Or maybe you've got to learn to coach your PM better and properly instruct them on what the state of your business is versus your long-term vision for the company. Happy to provide some free coaching from my perspective (professional CTO, managing a team of 30) - my contact details are in my profile.

My thoughts. Firstly, the fact you're generating a decent amount of recurring revenue in the first quarter of existence, is amazing. Do not discount how big that is.

Second, being a CEO is a lonely job. That's just the reality. If it were me, here's what I would do:

1. ditch trying to find a coach or tutor - you don't have time as it is
2. tell your partner he needs to handle the day to day for 1-2 months
3. dedicate your time to getting your website and all those things you listed, up and running - it simply has to be made a priority and your partner or other staff will need to pick up the slack

Stop trying to please everyone. Focus on what needs to be done. And I guess lastly, but perhaps most importantly, ask yourself if you really feel cut out for this. Not everyone is designed to be a founder and operator. If you're stressed to the max and hair is graying, what's going to happen when you hit $50K in RR? More money = bigger problems.

:)