Making the Decision (70% Rule)

Commit at 70% confidence because you learn more after deciding than before

Anneka Gupta
Becoming more strategic, navigating difficult colleagues, founder mode, more

Making the Decision (70% Rule)

"It's not about making the right decision, it's about making the decision." - Anneka Gupta (as remembered by colleague Rachel Wolan)

What It Is

Making the Decision is a framework for overcoming analysis paralysis by recognizing that you learn more after committing to a decision than you do by continuing to gather information beforehand. When you have roughly 70% confidence, that's enough to move forward—the remaining 30% will be refined through iteration.

The key insight: not deciding is itself a decision, and usually the worst one. You remain stuck in the hypothetical and gain no new high-quality information.

How It Works

The Core Principle:

  • Before commitment: You operate on imprecise, hypothetical information
  • After commitment: You get high-fidelity, real-world feedback
  • The learning accelerates dramatically once you commit

The 70% Threshold:

  • If you're ~70% confident, that's enough to decide
  • You can iterate on the remaining 20-30% as you learn
  • If you don't commit, you don't get new information to iterate on

The Learning Gap:

  • Analysis gives you hypothetical insights
  • Action gives you real insights
  • Real insights are almost always more valuable than hypothetical ones

How to Apply It

  1. Assess your confidence - Are you at roughly 70% confidence? If so, stop gathering more information and decide.

  2. Document your hypothesis - Write down what you believe and why. This isn't just for accountability—it's so you can learn when reality differs from expectations.

  3. Commit publicly - Making a decision real by sharing it with others increases learning velocity.

  4. Plan for iteration - Build in checkpoints to assess whether your hypothesis was correct and adjust accordingly.

  5. Expect partial waste - Accept that you might throw away 20% of work. This is better than making no decision at all.

Creating a Culture of Decisive Action

To help teams embrace this framework, Anneka recommends:

  1. State hypotheses explicitly - When making decisions, be clear: "Our hypothesis is that [X segment] will pay for this because [Y reason]. Here's our evidence, and here's what we don't know."

  2. Reward learning, not outcomes - If a decision didn't work out but the team learned something valuable, celebrate that learning.

  3. Review hypotheses, not decisions - When something fails, go back to the original hypothesis. What did you learn that you couldn't have known before?

  4. Make bad-decision tolerance explicit - Tell your team: "It's okay if we make bad decisions, as long as we learn from them and get better for next time."

When to Use It

  • When you find yourself asking "If I just had one more data point..."
  • When decisions keep getting delayed for more analysis
  • When you're operating on imprecise information (which is always in product)
  • When the cost of delay exceeds the cost of being 30% wrong
  • When you need to build a culture of speed and learning

Source

  • Guest: Anneka Gupta
  • Episode: "Becoming more strategic, navigating difficult colleagues, founder mode, more"
  • Key Discussion: (00:30:42) - Anneka explains why making decisions at 70% confidence is better than waiting
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

See also: Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke (pending extraction)

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