Sitting and preparing a strategy seminar makes it so clear. If I can get the team to gel and own the strategy, they’ll deliver it. And if it’s a good team, they’ll absolutely do this. And if it’s an even semi-coherent strategy, with a good team behind it on a mission to deliver.. They’re on track to dominate. Equipped with clarity and a reasonable strategy, good teams overcome whatever the universe throws at them....
To evaluate the performance of a growing startup, embrace spend-cycling. If every month is increased in spend, you don’t get a chance to evaluate potential profitability. So insert steady or scale-back months to see how much you can put in the bank. You win: Confidence in a baseline you can default back to if you need to pause and regroup. Proof that you can actually bank any results. Doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a lifestyle business or an exit, demonstrating profitability is important....
EVERYONE gets out of the groove sometimes. You can miss two weeks’ work of workouts, be unproductive at work, get stuck for months with no progress on that book you’ve been meaning to read. And when it inevitably happens, it’s easy to get in a funk. Get a little lost. Feel like you don’t even know where to start. Feel obliged to make up for every lost day all at once, while knowing it’s impossible....
Working “for the man” is exhausting. Most people, most of the time, want to minimise the amount of work required to unlock the reward. Usually the reward is salary and benefits. I find that the entire mental calculus changes when you’re working primarily for yourself. I’ve found two ways to do it. Make sure that your workplace provides enough opportunity to grow that it’s genuinely worth putting in extra effort to grow more as a human....
3 person founder team. Good delegation is making sure that each founder is playing to their strengths and asking for help on things that others are better at. Functional boundaries are very flexible, and delegating is based mostly on optimal speed and quality of delivery. Delegation to freelancers can already be in full swing at this stage, and is mostly about very clearly defined specific processes that have not yet been automated but still need to be done, and shouldn’t be done by a founder who has to focus on continued growth....