Hey Reader, Walk me through any company, and I’ll tell you its culture before lunch. And I won’t learn it from the poster in the lobby. I’ll learn it from the meeting that started seven minutes late while nobody looked surprised. From the report that went out with a wrong number and came back without a conversation. From the top salesperson who talked over the newest hire, in front of everyone, and the room just kept moving. Culture isn’t what you celebrate. It’s what you tolerate. Not the...
7 days ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Today I want to tell you about two founders. I'll call them Dana and Mike. Neither is one person. They're composites of a hundred builders I've watched, funded, competed with, bought from, and sat beside over my career. But I promise you this: you know both of them. You might be one of them. Same year, same city, same industry. Equally smart, equally hungry, equally good with customers. If you met them at a barbecue in year one, you couldn't have told them apart. Twenty years...
14 days ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Every owner who has it says it the same way, and always with a little pride: "We don’t really do marketing. It’s all word of mouth." They say it like they’re describing the weather. Something that happens to them. Something you can’t schedule. Here’s the truth: word of mouth is the output of a machine. In some companies the machine was built on purpose. In most, it runs by accident, at a fraction of capacity, and the owner calls the output luck. And no, asking "know anyone who...
21 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, Today's letter is different: you're going to do the work while you read it. Below are ten yes-or-no questions. Grab a pen, count your yeses honestly, and I'll tell you at the bottom what your score means, in the same plain language a buyer, a banker, or a burnout would eventually tell you for free, at the worst possible moment. Two rules. First, “sort of” is a no. Half-documented is undocumented; mostly-could is couldn't. Second, if you're just starting out, take the test anyway,...
28 days ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, A few letters back, I gave the first-customer question a single paragraph. It deserved a whole letter. This is that letter. Here’s where your first customer will never come from: the logo, the website, the LLC, the business cards, the Instagram page. I say that with love, because new founders spend their first three months on exactly those five things. Not because they’re necessary. Because they’re comfortable. They feel like progress, and they risk nothing, and deep down that’s...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, A billionaire said last month that anyone going to business school at 25 is “some kind of an idiot,” and the internet has been fighting about it ever since. Half the replies are defending the degree. Half are dancing on its grave. And almost everyone in the argument is missing the actual point, which is this: The degree was never the question. The question is what you’re actually trying to acquire. If you want information about business, we live in the greatest moment in human...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Let me show you the most dangerous ninety days in business. They look completely normal. That’s what makes them dangerous. Picture a small custom shop. It’s a composite of a thousand real ones, so make it a cabinet maker, a sign company, a machine shop, whatever’s near you. Day one: they win a ten thousand dollar job and spend four thousand on materials. Money out the door before a single cut gets made. Day thirty: the crew finishes, the customer is thrilled, handshakes all...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Here's a pattern I've seen so many times across seventeen companies that I now treat it as a law of physics. The resignation that hurts most is the one that comes from the person who never complained. Your B-players negotiate. They vent, they push back, they let you know exactly where the friction is, and honestly, God bless them for it, because at least you can see it coming. Your A-players don't do that. They're wired to handle things. So when something starts breaking for them,...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Something different today. I want to give you a gift that most owners only receive once, at the worst possible time to receive it: the chance to see your business through a buyer's eyes. What follows is a composite of walkthroughs I've been part of over nine exits and a career of deals, from both sides of the table. For the next few minutes, I'm the buyer. The business is yours. Let's go. 9:00 AM I arrive four minutes early. The parking lot tells me my first three things: whether...
2 months ago • 3 min read