Growth traps
Your biggest customer is teaching you the wrong product
The customer who pays the most has leverage to shape your roadmap. Building what they ask doesn't win the next 200 buyers.
Archive
Operations
Your status meeting is three numbers in a trench coat
Most weekly status meetings exist because nobody wants to commit three numbers to writing. Replace the ritual with a Monday written update.
Money decisions
The forecast got worse when it got bigger
One CFO's model grew from one tab to eleven and the variance to plan got wider. A forecast you can't rebuild from memory has stopped steering.
Growth traps
Stop Reading Late Feature Requests as Roadmap Input
Customers don't churn loudly. They ask for one more thing, watch you not ship it, and quietly leave. Most late feature requests are exit interviews in disguise.
Money decisions
A $4M raise bought 18 months of being wrong
They raised $4M to fix a sales problem that turned out to be a pricing problem. The money bought eighteen months of being wrong, with more conviction.
Founder decisions
The founder who couldn't be on vacation
He flew to Lisbon and answered Slack from a cafe by day three. The company didn't need him on vacation. It needed him to leave.
Money decisions
The Proposal Didn't Lose the Deal
Sales teams review lost deals by inspecting the proposal. That's the wrong artifact. The deal died earlier, and the proposal just recorded the time of death.
Team reality
The $40,000 Standing Meeting
A topic in its fourth week on the agenda means the meeting works and the business stalls. Add one column to the minutes and watch it stop.
Team reality
Stop Hiring for Culture Fit
Culture fit hires the candidate who reminds the room of itself. Replace it with values alignment plus working-style contrast.
Money decisions
Four Green Metrics, One Red Quarter
Most ops dashboards are not lying. They are showing the company exactly what the company asked to see two years ago. Most ops dashboards are decorative.
Money decisions
The Forecast Meeting
A forecast built as a best-estimate becomes a commitment the moment it leaves the spreadsheet. Three warning signs the conversion has already happened.
Team reality
Stop Calling It Delegation
Trust is not the absence of the manager. It is a specific structure most managers skip because they mistake it for micromanagement.
Money decisions
Your Best Margin Is Your Worst Customer
Gross margin reports what ingredients cost. Fully-loaded unit economics reports what the business lost. The two numbers are rarely the same.
Founder decisions
The Power of Listening in Leadership and Business
The world offers lessons everywhere. The loudest voice in the room is rarely the wisest — success depends on how well you listen and learn.
Founder decisions
Stop Fixing Your Weaknesses
Most people burn their best hours hiding what they're bad at instead of compounding what they're great at. That gap is a quiet business cost.
Founder decisions
How Your Mindset After Failure Dictates Your Next Win
How you think after losing shapes the time it takes to win; mindset drives recovery and success.
Founder decisions
Free Lunch Won't Fix Your Culture
Perks aren't culture; they're the receipt. What retains people is trust that survives payroll week, recognition when nobody's watching, and autonomy that holds.
Money decisions
When You Can’t Compete on Price, Compete on Belief
Competing on price is easy, but it erodes margin and loyalty. Building on belief and focus instead creates businesses that keep customers longer.
Founder decisions
Know Who You’re Negotiating With
Strong negotiations hinge less on numbers and more on understanding the person across the table, what they need, and what they're measured on.
Founder decisions
Pick Your Fights in Business Leadership
Winning every argument is easy. Winning the right ones is hard, and credibility works like a bank account where every push is a withdrawal.
Growth traps
Stay Small Before You Scale
Scaling before you've proven the model just multiplies what's broken. Stay small to nail the offer and unit economics, then grow in layers.
Founder decisions
Listen First, Then Swing in Business
The market rewards action, but action without attention is noise. Listen to the numbers and the people first, then take your swing.
Founder decisions
Why Every Business Crisis Feels Less Scary Over Time
Your first business crisis blindsides you because you have no reference points. By the third, you know the sequence and reach for the lever. Here's why.
Founder decisions
Most of your asks will fail. Ask more.
Rejection is the default and a yes is the exception. Run asking as a numbers game and the yeses compound into options you'd never get by waiting.