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clairevo
@clairevo
The quality of your brand decays quickly with distance from the core (usually the founder.) You might not see it, but your reputation is experiencing death by a thousand paper cuts if your company representatives are diffuse vs. centralized. Good? Founder led comms, core group of visible and credible leader/employees, authentic and opinionated voice. Bad: marketing filtered and diluted through committee, posted through anon logos, comms agencies yolo-ing milquetoast pitches, managers unable or unwilling to sell interviewees, under-amplified voices going under-utilized. My advice? - Name *who* is your company externally? It’s not a handle it’s a person (hopefully founder) - Inspect and expect better from anyone communicating externally. Make sure you know what your comms vendors are saying when they’re pitching you. Read the emails your recruiters send out. Listen in on a candidate close call. I guarantee you’ll find things you don’t like. - Be less afraid! Authenticity >>> perfection - Talk to users, not just the “market” - 1:1 engagement in public is powerful Don’t let bland embarrass you. Founder mode your brand.
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shl
@shl
Founder Mode = VC-funded founders acting like bootstrapped founders
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shyamalanadkat
@shyamalanadkat
after hundreds of founder conversations, something keeps jumping out: the most compelling ones have this almost supernatural ability to switch between internal and external modes of thinking. in "founder mode," they radiate this unwavering internal conviction about their vision - it's borderline unreasonable, yet infectious. but then they can instantly flip into "customer mode," where they become these incredibly present, curious listeners who seem to absorb every subtle market signal. they're simultaneously running two operating systems: one that's building this unshakeable internal reality, and another that's hyper-attuned to the external world. they pair this with natural storytelling that makes years of industry/market evolution feel obvious in two minutes. they're oddly intimidating, not from arrogance but from the depth of their thinking - yet somehow this makes you want to work for them even more. the best ones get energized, not defensive, when you poke holes in their thesis; they've thought 10x deeper about the counterarguments than you have. self-awareness combined with irrational ambition is vanishingly rare. when you see it, pay attention.
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yasser_elsaid_
@yasser_elsaid_
If you're a startup founder, you have 4 part-time jobs and 1 full time job. Your part-time jobs: - Founder-led sales - Founder-led marketing - Founder-led product design - Founder-led customer support Your full-time job: - Hiring and managing the best team you can possibly build You must be the person who knows everything about the product, the customers, and the path to growth. Founder mode is the only way. There are no shortcuts.
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lulumeservey
@lulumeservey
Founder Mode is a recipe for virality: (1) Identifies a popular belief that isn’t often said out loud (2) Articulates it in a succinct way (3) Gives it a catchy name (4) Associates it with high status people and institutions (5) Endorsement cascade starts with big accounts
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shl
@shl
GOD Mode A few weeks ago, Paul Graham published Founder Mode, about a management style practiced by Brian Chesky at Airbnb that was at least partially inspired by Steve Jobs. As Paul states in Founder Mode, "It seems to be working. Airbnb's free cash flow margin is now among the best in Silicon Valley." So, what is founder mode? The article rang true to me, but was purposefully unspecific. This is my attempt at proposing something more truthful by being more specific: GOD mode. Growth, Optimization, Destruction Every startup focuses on growth at its outset. They often raise money in order to focus exclusively on that. Eventually, the growth tapers out and the founders start focusing on optimization. That's what Paul refers to in his essay as "manager mode," which is already commonly taught in business school and practiced in all kinds of businesses around the world. Therefore, optimization isn't enough to build the singular businesses investors like Paul are hoping to invest in. The third point of GOD mode defines founder mode: destruction. Destruction is akin to invasive surgery, and similar to surgery, it's only possible with a god-like omniscience about the entire system. Hence, GOD mode. (This also means that GOD mode is only possible within the rare businesses where a single person can have complete omniscience about their business; companies like Gumroad and Airbnb.) In Hinduism, for example, the universe is created, preserved, and destroyed in a cycle of repeated events by three different gods: • Creation: Brahma is the creator of the universe, having made it from himself. • Preservation: Vishnu preserves the world and humans. • Destruction: Shiva is the destroyer of the universe, and is responsible for the cyclical resurrection. Christianity innovates on this concept by combining all three gods into a single Godhead, with total omniscience. Solo Founder Mode In 2023, Gumroad doubled "our" pricing to 10% flat. But really, I did. No one else would have made the same decision, as it put the entire company at risk. But from my perspective, the entire company was already dead, and I needed to do something aggressive to save it. Before doing so, I asked my team, top customers, and many of our investors whether it was a good idea. No one thought so. It turns out, no one agreed with me that increasing our pricing so drastically and dramatically–and directly, I went with an email blast titled "simpler, higher pricing"–was a good idea, but I believed it was the right thing to do, and did it anyway. (Why ask them then? Because they could have changed my mind. While I didn't have to follow their advice, it was important to make sure I wasn't missing something. I've disbanded many dramatic ideas due to feedback.) I was able to do this because: • I'm a solo founder. I didn't have to convince anyone • No one was going to stop me; everyone had a remote job they wanted to keep • I could do it myself; I'm technical None of this comes off as super likable. And it's not fun to be disliked. It paints "founder mode" vs "manager mode" as something more like "dictatorship" vs "democracy." But when your company is on the brink, you'll do what's necessary to save it. If that requires becoming a benevolent dictator, like Lee Yuan Yew had to do to resurrect Singapore, it becomes worth it. And actions like that do seem to require dictators. For example, it's interesting to me that Paul doesn't use the term "cofounder" anywhere in the article, even though most founders–including Brian Chesky–are actually cofounders. From my experience, I don't think founder mode can be practiced by equal cofounders. Yet, this goes against Y Combinator's most dogmatic advice: Have co-founders, and–ideally–make yourselves equals. Why, YC, why? YC states in this video that there are three main reasons to have a co-founder when starting a company: 1. Productivity increases 2. Emotional and moral support 3. Statistics. In their own words: "While iconic companies are often associated with a single famous figure, it's important to remember that at their earliest stages, even companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft all began with co-founders." In the same video, YC states that "when deciding on equity allocation between co-founders, the default starting point should typically be a 50/50 split. This equal division is ideal for early-stage startups where both founders are expected to contribute equally and need to be equally motivated…Even if one founder has made initial progress, giving a potential great co-founder an equal 50% share can be the best decision to ensure their full commitment and motivation throughout the startup journey." This advice is wrong. I believe that the best companies–like Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft–are founded by a single person, who has enough "rizz" to convince others that they are co-founders without actually making them equals. If this advice is wrong, why does YC advocate so strongly for it? One reason may be that having cofounders requires you to have convinced at least one other person to join you on your journey. This acts as a filter so that YC doesn't have to review as many applications. It also requires non-technical founders–most would-be applicants–to invest the time in finding a technical co-founder, spreading the gospel of YC on their behalf. But I don't think that's the core motivation. I think the core motivation, as Nassim Taleb explains in The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority, is because having co-founders with an equal split gives YC all of the power. And which institution–or founder–doesn't like power? If you own 49% of a company and your enemy owns 49% of the company, who has all the power? Whoever owns the remaining 2%. They get to choose the leader, and kick out the other. Founder Mode, though, cannot be implemented in such a scenario. It requires one person with almost dictatorial control instilled in them by the board to make hard, disagreeable decisions in pursuit of "truth"–product-market fit, or free cash flow. Founders who exhibit founder mode too early or too late tend to get fired. Or maybe, it is because YC itself is a partnership no longer led by its founder, and so can't enact founder mode itself. Its founder can only point the way and wait for them to change. Maybe, YC will change these cofounder guidelines soon. Or maybe, YC is right and I'm wrong. Having equal cofounders is the best way to start and run a business. Maybe not for the founders, but for the world. Default Dead or Default Alive? Dictators are not always benevolent. Recently, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg banned millions of customers from accessing WordPress resources due to a dispute with one of the largest-WordPress hosting sites, WP Engine. As part of Automattic Alignment, 159 people, or 8.4% of the company, left the company. It's ugly when someone like Matt Mullenwag uses his dictator status to change WordPress against the best wishes of its users, but maybe it's also necessary. The company may even lose, but society eventually wins. Perhaps founder mode, even when misapplied, allows one human's selfishness to continue the process of creative destruction that leads to the best tools for civilization at the best possible prices. (Or maybe Matt's right, and we'll all realize that several years from now. He knows stuff the rest of us don't.) In any case, I believe that this dictatorial way of running businesses will get much more popular as software eats the world, AI eats software, and founders use all of these advancements to scale their skills. I can speak from experience. I started Gumroad as a solo founder in 2011, raised two rounds of venture in 2011 and 2012, and–after failing to raise a third round–laid everyone except myself off in 2015. As part of a failed attempt to sell the business in 2017, I put together a one-pager with what manual tasks remained. Before I had to make these hard decisions, I thought I needed certain people. It wasn't until I was forced to make these decisions that I realized that I didn't really–I could do it all myself. It wasn't fun, but it was possible–and it led to a much healthier business–albeit a much less healthier me. I think Brian and Airbnb is on a similar path. Airbnb is a public company and what matters most now is Free Cash Flow. I think they'll get there the same way Gumroad did: by replacing every manual process with an automated one, by pushing all marginal costs to the customer, and having almost no employees. Today, humans are necessary for stellar customer service, crisis management, regulatory compliance and negotiations, property inspections, and more. But it won't be long until AI can do all of the above. If software eats the world, and AI eats software, what remains for non-founders to do? Many people love their 9-5, and aren't going to advocate for them being eliminated, even if that's the right thing for the business or the world. Most people don't want to be founders, and even most founders don't want to do it solo. So, where do we go from here? Personally, I don't think it's the founders' job to figure that out; it's the government's. Social welfare programs should continue to expand as they always have in the face of more and more automation. For my part, I've changed the name of Gumroad's parent company from Gumroad to Antiwork, to make it clear what my focus is: eliminating the unfun parts of work, which is almost all of it. I've also started prototyping our first hardware product, something I can't have omniscience about. We'll see how it goes.
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Overlap_Tech
@Overlap_Tech
Brian Chesky: Why more leaders need to adopt 'Founder Mode' "The general principle is being in the details and being very hands-on. It's this basic idea: great leadership is not absence; great leadership is presence. 'Founder Mode' was what I learned from observing Steve Jobs. Steve said: 'I'm in the details, but I'm partnering with people.' You need to work with leaders on the ground. You don't defer to them, but you don't tell them what to do." -@bchesky
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garrytan
@garrytan
Modus is how you can track the most important metric to building a hardcore culture at your startup: Revenue Per Employee Lin ran biz-ops for Hashicorp from 100 people to 2500 people and their $14B IPO. She built this to unlock FOUNDER MODE.
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StartupArchive_
@StartupArchive_
Keith Rabois explains “Founder Mode” and its similarities to how PayPal was run in the early days “At PayPal, we never promoted anybody based on their management skill. We promoted everybody based on their craft. So if you wanted to run the design team, you had to be the best designer. If you wanted to run the engineering team, you had to be the best engineer. If you wanted to run product, you had to be the best product person. The CFO had to be the best finance person.” The elimination of middle management from company org charts that Airbnb founder Brian Chesky talks about and Paul Graham’s viral essay Founder Mode, Keith argues, “re-popularized ideas that are pretty old school… It’s the antithesis of hiring someone whose expertise is managing versus someone whose expertise is building.” Keith points out that Elon Musk has always run his companies in “founder mode” with the slashing of headcount by 80% and promoting individual contributors to managers at X being perhaps the most prominent example. But Apple has been run this way for a lot of its history too: “At Apple you get promoted by mastering something. Not by being a generalist… Apple collates and collects a bunch of people who are literally the best in the world at 26 different things and mixes them together. That’s a much better model.” When asked what to do if, say, the best salesperson can’t grow into a VP of sales, Keith replies that most people should be able to and you should try it anyway: “Sometimes its mentoring, pairing them with the right person, giving them the right feedback. But at least if you promote that person, you’re not going to demoralize your team because everybody knows that they were the best salesperson… They may have to learn how to coach and mentor other people, but you have enthusiasm and energy from the rank and file.” He contrasts this to the alternative scenario: “If you bring in someone who’s never hit a quota, never proven that they can sell product X, and you’re like ‘Oh, you’re the new manager.’ Sometimes people are like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ And it’s a very valid critique.” Video source: @imchrisvasquez (2024)
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bencasnocha
@bencasnocha
Essays/frameworks/blog posts get shared because of a catchy title or singular catchphrase. A solid, substantive argument is necessary but not sufficient for people to read and remember it. "Founder Mode," Paul Graham's post that's going viral, is an amazing, catchy, fresh title. I learned this lesson the hard way. In our book The Startup of You, Reid and I wrote in one chapter about reversible vs. irreversible decisions. Making an irreversible decision in your career demands careful analysis and a weighing of the risks. Whereas making a reversible decision calls for decisiveness and comfort with risk. In the 12 years since the book came out, I don't think a single person has ever told me, "Hey I really liked your framework of reversible vs. irreversible career decisions." Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos made an identical point in a framework he called "one way doors vs. two way doors." It's a catchier, vivid, memorable framing for the exact same idea. It spread. I've heard "one way doors vs. two way doors" referenced dozens of times when people contemplate decisions. Titles matter. Catchphrases matter. Brand names matter.
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StartupArchive_
@StartupArchive_
Keith Rabois explains “Founder Mode” and its similarities to how PayPal was run in the early days “At PayPal, we never promoted anybody based on their management skill. We promoted everybody based on their craft. So if you wanted to run the design team, you had to be the best designer. If you wanted to run the engineering team, you had to be the best engineer. If you wanted to run product, you had to be the best product person. The CFO had to be the best finance person.” The elimination of middle management from company org charts that Airbnb founder Brian Chesky talks about and Paul Graham’s viral essay Founder Mode, Keith argues, “re-popularized ideas that are pretty old school… It’s the antithesis of hiring someone whose expertise is managing versus someone whose expertise is building.” Keith points out that Elon Musk has always run his companies in “founder mode” with the slashing of headcount by 80% and promoting individual contributors to managers at X being perhaps the most prominent example. But Apple has been run this way for a lot of its history too: “At Apple you get promoted by mastering something. Not by being a generalist… Apple collates and collects a bunch of people who are literally the best in the world at 26 different things and mixes them together. That’s a much better model.” When asked what to do if, say, the best salesperson can’t grow into a VP of sales, Keith replies that most people should be able to and you should try it anyway: “Sometimes its mentoring, pairing them with the right person, giving them the right feedback. But at least if you promote that person, you’re not going to demoralize your team because everybody knows that they were the best salesperson… They may have to learn how to coach and mentor other people, but you have enthusiasm and energy from the rank and file.” He contrasts this to the alternative scenario: “If you bring in someone who’s never hit a quota, never proven that they can sell product X, and you’re like ‘Oh, you’re the new manager.’ Sometimes people are like, ‘Who the hell are you?’ And it’s a very valid critique.” Video source: @imchrisvasquez (2024)
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ycombinator
@ycombinator
Christina Cacioppo (@christinacaci) is the co-founder and CEO of Vanta, the trust management platform helping 12,000+ companies prove security and compliance. She’s scaled the company from a spreadsheet prototype to a global team of 1,000, most recently raising at a $4.15B valuation. On the Social Radars, Christina shares how she trusted her gut to make unconventional decisions, the lessons she’s learned on delegation and focus, and what it means to stay in founder mode while building one of the fastest-growing companies in SaaS. 00:25 – From Spreadsheet Prototype to Platform 02:00 – Why Security and Compliance Were Broken 04:00 – Convincing the First Customers 06:00 – Scaling to 12,000+ Companies 08:30 – Lessons on Gut Instincts & Leadership 10:30 – Raising at a $4.15B Valuation 12:00 – Staying in Founder Mode
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seyitaylor
@seyitaylor
tbh if your company isn’t at $1m ARR yet, you don’t need to worry about founder mode.
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aaron_epstein
@aaron_epstein
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room” Many founders think of "brand" as a logo or colors or visuals But as a founder, you are the brand Giving users your cell #, fixing bugs right now, and hiring great people build brand more than any logo
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jesslivingston
@jesslivingston
The latest Social Radars episode is with Paul Gross of Remora Carbon. Paul has a unique take on founder mode. Each quarter, he identifies the three biggest threats to the company, and those are the main things he works on.
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adityaag
@adityaag
1/ The most misunderstood part of "Founder Mode" is that it applies only to the singular founder at a company. As an example, Zuck always drilled the notion "total ownership" into all of us in the early Facebook days.
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benhylak
@benhylak
"We hired truly great people and gave them the room to do great work. A lot of companies [...] hire people to tell them what to do. We hire people to tell us what to do. We figure we're paying them all this money; their job is to figure out what to do and tell us." -- Steve Jobs
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kashvii
@kashvii
steve jobs embodied founder mode before it was a thing. but few understand that he deployed manager mode in the right way when it came down to it. this is my favorite interview of his where he's talking about his management principles 👇
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hnshah
@hnshah
Founders Who Don’t Build in Public Are Playing on Hard Mode You’re already building the thing. You’re writing the code, fixing the bugs, battling uncertainty. Sharing it doesn’t take more effort. It turns the work you’re already doing into traction you haven’t earned yet. That’s what early builders understood. They didn’t have growth teams. They didn’t have budget. They had a few tweets, a blog post, a live dashboard, a quiet audience that turned into their loudest support. They shipped and shared. Talked and tested. Shaped the product in public and let the feedback loop close faster. Their approach created leverage, ignited momentum and built founder brands all at the same time. When you don’t build in public, you’re making it harder on yourself. You’re hiding from the people who would help you win. You’re delaying the moment when customers feel something for what you’re doing. There are no rules here. You don’t need a social meeis strategy or a Notion doc with OKRs. You just need to tell the truth as you build. What’s working. What’s not. What you’re learning. What you’re stuck on. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to be present. The traction is already in the work. Building in public is how you let it out.
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StartupArchive_
@StartupArchive_
Keith Rabois tells the story of Elon Musk observing interns waiting in line for coffee at SpaceX Keith is asked how Elon Musk gets so much done, to which he replies: “If you approach every day and every week of your life with the question, ‘What did you accomplish this week?’ I think that compounds, and very few people do that. I think that’s the number one ingredient.” As for the second ingredient, Keith tells a story he heard from some friends at SpaceX where Elon observed a line of interns piling up around the coffee machine. This prompted Elon to send a memo to the company asking: “Why are all the interns wasting all this time? If you feel like you have nothing better to do than waiting in line, you’re at the wrong company. And by the way, I’m installing cameras to make sure that we don’t have lines at the coffee shop.” Keith believes that stamping out entitlement and expecting people to accomplish things every day also compounds over decades in Elon’s career. He recalls a principle PayPal cofounder Max Levchin taught him where he compares startups to gas in chemistry: “Gas expands to the size of the container… If you tell people they have a month, it’ll take a month. If you tell people it takes two weeks, it’ll take two weeks. Tell them a week, it’ll take a week. So you want to constantly compress the container size because those accomplishments add up over months, quarters, years, and decades.” Video source: @imchrisvasquez (2024)
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yanabana
@yanabana
While @Paulg is right that there's no books or business school classes about founder mode, I think it's generally what founders learn from @ycombinator: "Don't try to outsource figuring out your company." It's in: founder-led sales, talk to customers, build your product, etc.
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thiswontlast
@thiswontlast
This Won't Last from @rabois @kevinryan @loganbartlett @zachweinberg is out now. This episode covers Founder Mode, the state of VC fundraising, the potential for an unrealized gains tax, and Russia’s influence in Telegram.
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agazdecki
@agazdecki
The ideal early stage startup team: - the mission, vision, strategy person - the get shit done person - the scrappy builder person - the “I need dark mode” person - the brand and storytelling person - the customer acquisition person Luckily all these roles are for the founder.
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dharmesh
@dharmesh
I'm shifting into early-stage founder mode and working to drive some founder-led growth (i.e. actually *sell* HubSpot with a personal quota to hit). As part of that, I'm working on a series of "Founder to Founder" videos. First video is up: "Why Can't I Just Vibe Code A CRM?" 🧵
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kobyjconrad
@kobyjconrad
The most important lesson I’ve learned recently is that the only thing that REALLY matters is shipping good product Not raising a big round Not culture Not team Not even founder mode 😂 If you just build something truly great, everything else just manifests
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mikeknoop
@mikeknoop
Since 2020, many folks have noted Zapier's significantly increased rate of shipping, particularly major new products and features. Close to a dozen. At that point the only "Founder Mode" DNA in the company was Bryan, Wade, and myself. We made an intention decision to start hiring and recruiting ex-founders to increase this DNA inside the company. I did a survey this spring. We're now over 20 ex-founders. I think has played a significant role in re-orienting us internally towards building and with bigger ambition!
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rauchg
@rauchg
My job is identifying, recruiting, and empowering people to act as product owners at @vercel – recursive founder mode
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andrew__rea
@andrew__rea
Founder mode will never be accessible to those of you that are just doing this for the clout. Easy to Tweet about founder mode. But a lot of ya'll never have and never will f*cking live it.
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NWischoff
@NWischoff
A lot of founders reach out asking how to build a company brand on X. The below applies to anyone frankly. My thoughts if useful: -Strong sentence in your bio and what your co does after your title and tag your company X account -Post 1-2x/day and only talk about your business and industry. Stay on brand and own your niche. -Topics: Industry updates and an have an opinion on them (an opinion will make you stand out). Company updates (new customers, traction, key hires) -No hashtags. Nothing gimmicky. -Follow every single account in your niche that has a strong following and start responding to their tweets -Keep every post short and straight to the point -Don't take things personally. Bullies come out of a hiding once you reach a certain scale.
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signulll
@signulll
most ppl don’t realize that to build a lasting well known brand that stands for something, you have to actually *stand* for something. the best founders find the thing the whole category often takes for granted & reject it openly. that rejection becomes the brand.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ apple was the classic example of this early on, & now the modern example is clearly anthropic.
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endowment_eddie
@endowment_eddie
Too many firms play the brand game with one foot in / one foot out. Let founders take the spotlight and do no marketing (Thrive) or own the content space and drive the brand of your GPs (a16z). Don’t be in the middle (LinkedIn/X exit claims, new deals, and occasional blogs).
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waqasali
@waqasali
Introducing Nama – a storytelling studio for startups Dear friends, i’m excited to share that I’m launching Nama, a storytelling studio that helps founders launch and tell compelling stories. ⨀
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lessin
@lessin
Cowboys, Craftsmen, and Visionaries — The Three Founder Archetypes.
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theo
@theo
I want to do a panel about how to actually market your product and think about content. Founder focused. Who wants to host it? Biggest space with least planning on my part wins
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RachaelRad
@RachaelRad
Please read this from Lulu. If I could add: 1. In 2026 founders will learn that saying yes to everything (ubiquity) is not how you will stand out. Being discerning (picky) about brands you associate with is the way. 2. Repetition doesn't spoil the prayer is what I always say but I didn't make it up it someone else did but anyway . . . The founders that zig and zag all around with new messages they're enamored with in real time will fade into the noise. The founders who say the same compelling things in a disciplined and clear way over and over again will experience compounding effects and hear their message coming back to them from the market by the end of the year.
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random_walker
@random_walker
Something I've observed in academia but I suspect is true in industry as well: as you become more senior, you'll find that you can be much more productive if you spend all your time being a manager and letting junior people do all the real work. But after a few years of this, you're likely to lose your skill at doing the work yourself, the opportunity to practice that skill, and the gratification of doing so that drew you to your chosen profession in the first place. And you'll probably also get worse at being a manager as you lose touch with the actual work. Avoiding managerdom is hard. You have to give up substantial short-term productivity gains. If you're in academia in a tenure track, you risk not getting tenure by being less productive. And personally I find that switching between thinker mode (deep work with no distractions for a whole day) and manager mode (a thousand quick but urgent tasks) to be highly unpleasant. When I'm in thinker mode, it kills me that people have to wait a day (often a lot more) for a 1-minute response from me that could unblock them on what they're stuck on and save them hours of work. When I'm in manager mode, it kills me that I have all these creative ideas sloshing around in my brain that I'm not able to execute on. So it's extremely tempting to perpetually be in just one mode or the other. When you have a team, not managing them is not an option, but being a pure manager is an option. That makes a constant struggle to carve out time for your own work and not give in to the temptation. Note: I think this is only tangentially related to Founder Mode vs Manager Mode. It's much more related to another Paul Graham essay, Maker's Schedule vs Manager's Schedule. And Deep Work by Cal Newport is very relevant.
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lulumeservey
@lulumeservey
Not everyone is as naturally charismatic as a Palmer or a Jensen, but anyone can develop their own brand of aura (or auctoritas), set a vision, and recruit a loyal band of true believers to go make it happen This is what it takes to build a cult
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hnshah
@hnshah
Founder Management Styles: The Hidden Operating System Every founder carries a management style into their startup. It isn’t obvious at first. It hides in the way decisions get made, who speaks up in meetings and how quickly truth travels through the team. What people call personality is often just the rules they set for how work flows. A founder who grew up in a chaotic startup usually builds another one. A founder who lived through layers of process at a big company may end up enforcing bureaucracy on a ten-person team. Their habits become the team’s environment. And that’s where the test begins. At ten people, speed and improvisation can feel energizing. At fifty, those same habits feel like noise and confusion. At two hundred, the style that once held the team together can paralyze the company. The mistake founders make is treating breakdowns as “people problems.” Most of the time it’s the environment. Teams rarely lose talent overnight. They grind down when the system around them stays stuck. Think of the founder who insists on approving every decision long after the company has grown. At five people it meant quality. At fifty it means a backlog that kills momentum. Or the founder who avoids conflict by default. At ten people it creates harmony. At two hundred it breeds politics, because no one knows who’s accountable. Great founders rebuild their environment again and again. They learn to read the signals of misfit: decisions slowing, priorities colliding, truth taking too long to surface. They know those are symptoms of an outdated operating system and not bad people. A company survives the long run only if its environment renews itself as the team grows.
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dhaber
@dhaber
1/ I’ve always believed that entrepreneurs should *build their brand through the lens of their customers.* Most founders do the exact opposite.
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benhylak
@benhylak
in order to be a founder, you have to constantly and fearlessly tell people what you want. people live their entire life without learning how to do this.
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eladgil
@eladgil
Pivot points on your life School -Brand or not -What you study Spouse -Who you marry -Age when marry -Kids # & health Work -Platform or not -Scale or not -Founder or not Family & friends -Clicks of friends -Problems or not (money, health, drugs etc) Health -Self explanatory
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hnshah
@hnshah
Your brand is the story people tell when you’re not in the room. Make your work so visible, nobody needs you to explain it.
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karrisaarinen
@karrisaarinen
Not sure what happened, maybe startup market just expanded, but remember back in the day founders were much more focused on the unique perspective and design they had for the products. There was more patience to create and explore. Even when the founders weren't designers. Now it seems founders try to speed run the process and clone, copy or use template of a succesful product without finding their own unique perspective or voice for the design. Encouraging founders to have more patience to find their own way. Showing examples when founders have done it.
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businessbarista
@businessbarista
founder-led content is more important than ever. but it's hard to find the time, not be cringe, and consistently deliver quality sh*t. here's the 9-question doc i send to my founder friends anytime they ask for content help...
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lennysan
@lennysan
Pentium. Powerbook. Azure. Vercel. CapCut. BlackBerry. Sonos. Swiffer. Febreze. Impossible Burger. Subaru Outback. One company named them all. Over 40 years, @LexiconBranding has named nearly 4,000 brands and companies, employing 250+ linguists and pioneering the art and science of brand naming. In a rare interview, founder David Placek reveals: 🔸 Their three-step process for coming up with legendary brand names 🔸 Why polarizing opinions are the strongest signal that you’ve found the right name 🔸 Why you won’t “know it when you see it” 🔸 How every letter of the alphabet creates a specific psychological vibration 🔸 The diamond framework: a 4-step process any founder can use to find their perfect name 🔸 Much more Listen now 👇 • YouTube: https://t.co/YTVzR8seN0 • Spotify: https://t.co/smmejNJKRt • Apple: https://t.co/IlvpZTwxuF Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting the podcast: 🏆 @WorkOS — Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://t.co/XH3bKmeEkH 🏆 @Stripe — Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue: https://t.co/zOscBW98BX 🏆 @oneschema_co — Import CSV data 10x faster: https://t.co/awfcZaoXqj https://youtu.be/adyIaTopO6g https://open.spotify.com/episode/4wmYsNWRgfGJ2lUwUpyFfy https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naming-expert-shares-the-process-behind-creating/id1627920305?i=1000715003337 https://workos.com/lenny https://stripe.com/ https://oneschema.co/lenny
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gregisenberg
@gregisenberg
My rules for being a founder (after selling 3 companies): - Pay your invoices fast. People appreciate it - Recurring meetings are mostly useless - Your best internet ideas come when you are off the internet - Create products no one asks for but everyone wants - Really interesting people apply for Chief of Staff roles - You need 1000 bad ideas to get to 1 good idea - Social posts are MVP V1, group chats are MVP V2, products is mvp v3 - Avoid VC unless it's a competitive advantage or you're building deeptech, cleantech, AI chips etc - Be a rifle not a shotgun. Rifles are targeted, shotguns aren't. The internet rewards targeted products - Products are like airbnbs. The ones that get booked up the most are the unique experienced ones - Be a community billionaire. Meaning, create value with many micro-communities -Buy the ticket, take the chance. My best opportunities came from hopping on a plane to meet someone - Build communities to avoid reliance on ads - We’re all in the trust business. Do things that make people trust you - 100% passive income from startups doesn’t exist. - Multiple products, multiple revenue streams in case something dries up - Be the creator or partner with the creator but always have a creator involved - Freedom from venture, freedom from ads makes me happy. No bosses or micro-bosses - Do things to put you in the zone to come up with the ideas - Celebrate all wins, little and big - Everyone with an internet connection can build an empire - Be proud or what you're doing or don't do it - The best ideas are capital light, defendable, have network effects & increased demand - Dividends > exits - You can take over your world not the world. Gotta start somewhere niche - If you can turn your jealousy of others into inspiration of others, you instantly become more productive - Don’t lose money monthly, make cash flow - Never call GMV ARR when it's GMV - Brands: people like brands. Community-based brands: people love brands - Google Trends/Reddit is a goldmine for startup ideas - Work with people who will be fun to work with - Be on time, send cal invites, do the little things - Whoever is latest to the meeting pays for the coffee, food, drinks. - Create the things you wish existed - The most important decision you can make on any given day to be productive: ignore the noise - "You can get what you want - if you help enough other people get what they want.” - Every sale has some urgency. No urgency, no sale - Never care what others think unless it's a loved one - Sometimes you need to overdose on caffeine, put some headphones on and ship your heart out - Every startup you start ask yourself what's your unfair advantage. You'll need one - Checking your email isn't working. People go in these "infinite loops" from app to app checking only to realize the day is over. - The best products don't necessarily win, the best brand does - I find all my business partners from either people I grew up with or people I find fascinating on the internet, and nothing in between. - Find true fans. “10 people who yell make more noise than 10,000 people who are silent” - My retirement plan. Pick niche. Build community. Create product. Dominate niche. Hire operators. Don't raise venture capital. - You’d be surprised how many startups spend millions of dollars a year of other people’s money trying to scale a business without an offer that resonates. - TikTok reviewers are the new search engines. - Reality is the ultimate "virtual reality” - Every company is made out of thin air. Anything is possible. - Find cheerleaders. People above you, people below you, people on your level - Underspend on material pocessions, overspend on people, experiences, that move you faster - Some unfair advantages: internet audiences, being "nerdy", spy software, being early - Create products that reinforce the identity. Those outperform. - On creating content: the post brings the people, the replies bring the gold I hope this got you thinking. Reply if it did. You can follow me @gregisenberg for more.