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The first week of a company
Almost none of the interesting decisions come first. The boring infrastructure does, and getting it wrong is expensive in a way that is invisible for about two years.
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How to become an authoritative voice
Nobody hands you authority. You assemble it, in a specific order, and most of the order is unglamorous. Here is the sequence that worked for me — blog,…
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An eight-second audience
A generation that has never known a world without social platforms is not simply a younger version of the last one, and most brand messaging aimed at them…
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A perfect rating reads as a lie
An unbroken wall of five stars now does the opposite of what it was supposed to do — to customers, and increasingly to the systems reading on their…
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The successful say no to almost everything
Warren Buffett’s line is that very successful people say no to almost everything. In a referral business that is not a productivity tip — it is the whole…
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Margin is what pays for selling
Roughly eighty percent of new businesses are gone inside eighteen months, and the usual diagnosis is that they could not sell. Often the truth is narrower: their margin…
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Nobody loses their nerve at the bottom. They lose it just before it works.
The failures I have watched up close did not happen in the bad months. They happened in the month things started going right. Here is what I think…
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Nobody likes a self-obsessed brand
Most company social accounts read like someone talking about themselves at a party. The fix is not better writing about yourself. It is talking about other people.
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The only question to ask about a new tool
Rory Valen: automation is to your time what compound interest is to your money. But the compounding only starts once the tools talk to each other.
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The tactics changed. The absence of a plan didn’t.
In 1999 the question was why do I need a website. In 2015 it was why do I need an app. In 2026 it is what do I…