a chicken-and-egg problem

a chicken and egg problem

cliché A situation in which it is difficult or impossible to tell which of two things comes (or should come) first, as each one seems to cause the other to occur. A reference to the ancient paradox, "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" A chicken is required to lay an egg, but that chicken must have hatched from an egg to begin with. You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience. It's a chicken and egg problem. It is a chicken-and-egg problem for many would-be sellers—you need inventory in order to start making money, but you need money to start accumulating inventory. Did the company falter because our biggest clients left, or did our clients leave because they could sense instability within our company? For the time being it's something of a chicken and egg problem.

a chicken-and-egg problem

an unresolved question as to which of two things caused the other.

This expression comes from the traditional riddle: ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’