Hey Reader,
Early days, I’m not sold MRR is THE metric. Or lack of churn. Or customer adoption. Or usage over time cohort analysis. Or some performative PMF metric.
Because I think, generally, these positive market signals are reflective of a different metric. The YOU metric…
AIB. Am I Better. What proof do I have to show that.
MRR is a lagging indicator of what you’ve already built.
AIB is a leading indicator of what you’re capable of building.
If the founder hasn’t evolved, they’ll inevitably hit a capability ceiling that no amount of hustle can break through.
You’ve been at this for 10 months. Or 2 years. Or maybe 3.
You wish this was measured over such a long axis!!
You’ve been at this for 10 minutes. 2 weeks. 2 months. Evolution must happen immediately.
We say it again and again. Fastest team to learn wins. Build. Release. Feedback. Iterate. And you always thought that was about product.
It’s also YOU!
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Starting A Startup: Build Something People Want
Every founder starts at zero. No one starts with a product, customers, revenue, or a real clue how it will all play out.
Failure is the result of not doing everything in your power to turn your nothing into something. It's that simple.
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You’re working harder than you’ve ever worked. Longer hours. Higher stakes. More pressure. Full calendar. Strong and impactful to-do list. You are doing everything right.
But.... If you look at YOUR progress week by week, how do you measure up, what’s different about you?
Not your startup. Not your metrics. Not your team size. Not even your big new customer you closed. Definitely not that big feature you just released. You.
Are you making better decisions faster? How. Have you unlocked new capabilities? How. Broken old patterns? How. Built new mental models? How.
Or are you just the same founder with bigger problems, less sleep, talking about how hard it is - and thinking this is what #FounderMode looks like?
Your startup’s growth rate is capped by yours. And so if all you can really show for it, is that you are now "more tired" then I think we have a problem.
THE PATTERN
Six months ago, you were firefighting. Today, still firefighting. Just more and bigger fires. Feel familiar? Everyone gets it... It's the day to day grind. Doing the sales calls, owning product, wearing every single hat and incrementally heading in the right direction.
I'll give you a clean example. When you start, you ignore meetings if you can't see what's in it for you - the dotted line to value isn't clear. Makes sense. Focus on what matters, kill the fluff. But as you grow you realize that in the pursuit for the one meeting that matters, the trajectory changer, you have to be willing to take 9 that don't. Learning you have to kiss a lot of frogs, is a founder mutation.
Six months ago, you had hiring issues. Today, you have hiring issues. Now they just are more expensive and have bigger impact.
Six months ago, you struggled with prioritization. Today, you struggle with prioritization. Just… you guessed it, more expensive and bigger impact.
Same shit. Same founder. Same sword. Bigger looking monsters.
Often you think you’re growing because you’re surviving. We are still in business, still seeing revenue growth, have customers who like us, team is delivering - it feels good, but it’s not growth when you repeat the same patterns but louder and with bigger consequences.
And this is why AIB matters. Horizontal founder growth caps everything else including your MRR. The founder’s ceiling becomes the company’s ceiling.
If you agree, then we could take the AIB and ask whether your personal growth rate is faster than your problems are compounding.
It's brutal, especially if you have revenue, you're hitting goals, you feel confident about tomorrow. But for most founders, the answer is no. The problems compound faster than your capability to manage them.
THE DELUSION
Every founder on earth will tell you they are growing. New skills, new tools, new platforms, new sales lingo, new confidence, new new new…
Is that what personal growth means to you?
It’s not AIB if you making consistently consistent mistakes. It’s not AIB if you haven’t gone back to basics to truly think and understand your business. It’s not AIB if problems in your business are predictable. That’s just pain management.
So what does real evolution look like? Perhaps...
The founder who sees the impact of work on their body and mind so starts eating healthy. Not because they read a book or listened to a podcast, but because they connected the dots between the 2pm crash and the redbull lunch and the evening crash and their ability to think clearly and operate as a high performing founder.
The founder who is no longer dominating the narrative on sales calls. Not because they delegated. Because they evolved from selling features to asking why, to building outcomes for customers. From talking to listening.
The founder who’s no longer afraid to say no. Or yes. Not because they got more confident or arrogant but instead built conviction about what matters and what doesn’t.
The founder who moves from “I” to “we.” Not in the royal sense. In the actual sense. Where the company isn’t an extension of their ego but is now a thing they’re building with people. (which leads to...)
The founder who goes from Kim Jong-un leadership to thinking about ESOPs. Not because someone told them to but because they realized the company is bigger than them and retention matters more than control.
These are founder mutations.
Some might call this a glow up. Sure. It’s really just the founder maturity cycle. It’s just fighting to not be the same person just with more responsibilities and less sleep.
WHAT YOU HAVE TO KILL
Your growth often isn’t addition of duties (it is, do more better!) but in this context it’s subtraction.
You have to take the kill chain to yourself. What are you doing or not doing that’s keeping you at the same level? What do you HAVE to do to get there...
This is what it could look like for founders with families who don't have a picturesque view of work-life balance, but want to do right by the people they love. Not afraid to do the hard work, not afraid to do what it takes but still believing they can be fully present. For most founders in this position, they know this balance is not achievable, and so it migrates to guilt…
Reading a book to my kid and an Intercom message arrives from a user having an awful experience. Who wins. Both choices are resented, both choices have me feeling guilty.
Everyone’s been there. That’s the awful prioritization that makes you hate yourself. Until you unisolate the moment, kill the delusion and work out your boundaries instead.
“I am home for dinner every night at this time.”
“I am home to put my kids to bed at this time every night.”
"Replace with whatever works for you!"
And at 8pm? Back online. By yourself. Exploring. Looking. Evaluating. Thinking. Working in the dark in secret. Because you want to.
That’s the mutation. Where you recognize the guilt, recognize it doesn’t work for anyone and pre-determine these intentional trade-offs.
From “I can’t be everywhere” to “Here’s where I will be, and here’s when I won’t.” From reactive resentment to structured choice.
The founder who hasn’t made this shift is still choosing between the kid and the customer. Still hating themselves for every choice. Still pretending balance is possible vs the founder who has CHOSEN to make the math work. Not perfectly. But deliberately.
So...
If you feel like you are just the same founder in a bigger arena, then this might help…
Horizontal growth is working harder on the same level. Vertical growth is becoming a different level of founder.
Most of you are horizontal. Busy, stressed, exhausted, but fundamentally the same. You have heard me scream about it… founders doing horizontal fluff.
And that’s why you’re stuck. I don’t need a founder who is really great at being always on fire. That’s not growth. That’s Stockholm syndrome with chaos. I don’t need a founder with more experience but not evolution. That’s expensive repetition.
I don’t need a founder who is just busier.
Your startup can’t outgrow you. So either you need to start focusing on AIB or start polishing your resume. Because it always crashes.
And I understand, it’s almost impossible, so easy for a bystander to throw stones, to tell you that you’re not prioritizing your own growth because you’re too busy surviving.
But what I know to be true is there is no calm down moment when you will get to focus on this reality. Just like the team.. The founder that got us here, cannot be the founder to take us there.
So if you have a moment, what proof do you have and if you can’t answer with specifics then we have to accept that you’re just older, more tired, and probably holding your startup back.
To repeat. Your startup’s ceiling is your ceiling. Raise yours.
If I can be of service, feel free to grab time.
LFG.
- James
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