top of page
Featured Posts


Building Systems Before You Think You Need Them
There is a predictable moment in the life of an early company, usually somewhere between the twelfth and the eighteenth month, when the work that had been running smoothly on the founder memory begins to slip out of reach. Magnific.com Customer requests get answered late or not at all, important conversations are forgotten because no one wrote them down, decisions are made twice because the original decision was never recorded, and the founder, who had felt in control of the


Choosing What to Say No to as You Grow
Most founders begin a startup with a strong instinct to say yes to almost everything, partly because the early months reward generosity and openness and partly because saying yes feels like the kind of behavior that successful founders are supposed to exhibit. Magnific.com The instinct is reasonable in the first year, when the company is small enough that opportunities are rare, and almost any new conversation, partnership, or feature request is worth at least examining. The


When to Stop Doing Everything Yourself
Most founders begin a startup by doing every job that needs doing, writing the code, talking to the customers, designing the landing page, answering the support emails, and remembering which invoices are still unpaid, and in the first year that habit is genuinely a strength, because you learn the business by being inside every part of it. In the second year, the same habit quietly becomes the thing that limits the company, because the work expands, the hours run out, the pace


Fuzzy's Failure: A Hard Lesson for Startups
The abrupt closure of San Francisco-based pet care startup Fuzzy, merely 18 months after securing an impressive $44 million in funding,...
2 min read


The Rise and Fall of IRL: A Cautionary Tale for Startups
The announcement last week that the social networking app IRL is shutting down despite raising over $200 million in funding comes as a...
2 min read


5 Early Warning Signs Your Startup is Losing Momentum (and How to Get Back on Track)
Launching a startup often begins with thrilling momentum as founders turn their passionate vision into reality. But without careful...
3 min read
bottom of page
