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I used to be popular... now I'm just productive.

For a long time, I used to think that the more I built my personal brand, the more successful my startup would become. I spent countless hours at networking events, speaking gigs, and 5 nights per week doing dinners to expand my network. At the time, I was awfully popular.

Then one day, during my millionth speaking event, one of my investors pulled me aside. He said, very bluntly, "WTF are you doing here? I invested in your startup, and all I see is you showing up at every networking event doing speeches. Why aren't you back in your office building a company?"

He was right. While I was busy building my personal brand, what I wasn't doing was building my startup. Yes, more people knew about my...

What if getting bigger makes us a worse company?

It's become the fundamental startup dogma that if you want to be a real startup, you have to scale as fast as possible and become as big as possible.

Bigger team. Bigger revenue. Bigger everything.

What if the very things that make this company special right now, our culture, our energy, our freedom, get destroyed by growth? What if the freedom we fought so hard for turns into investor stress, board expectations, and straight-up self-loathing?

There's a point where the concept of growth masks the destruction of what made us great to begin with.

In Case You Missed It

We Get Paid For Finishes, Not Starts As Founders, it's important for us to remember that nothing matters until the end goal is r...

What if the time comes when we trade our sacrifice for a payout and we find it wasn't what we had hoped?

Years ago I was sitting at dinner with my wife discussing the final details of closing on our new home in Bel Air, California. My wife, being the smarter of us, was lamenting the cost, and said that it was a big undertaking for our family, and she was second guessing whether we should do it.

I told her that was a big problem for me, but not because of the house. I said "I've been working every waking moment, non-stop for nearly 30 years. Every life event I skipped, every holiday I didn't celebrate, every experience I'll never get back was a promise I made to myself. That promise was that one day, it would enable me to do something extrao...

Congratulations — you just sold your company! Time to sit back and see the decimal places on your bank account sprint to the right!

Now you've got the means to do whatever you want with your newfound wealth. You've worked so hard to get here — what could possibly go wrong?

Everything. Everything can go wrong. And for many Founders it really does.

Whenever a Founder I know has a wealth event, the first thing I do is get in front of them and give them a very specific speech. I've been giving this speech for over 30 years, and I'd like to share it with you today.

I've lovingly titled the speech "Congrats, now don't fuck it up!"

You Only Need to Win Once

The problem with gamblers like us is that we love to win. So the idea of not winning again...

We have a great opportunity to be super tight with our employees — but should we be?

It's easy for us to fall in love with the idea of being close to the people we work with. In the early days of a startup, it’s almost unavoidable. We’re in the trenches together, working long hours, taking risks, and sharing wins. At some point, it stops feeling like a team and starts feeling like a family.

But there’s a line. And if we’re not careful, we cross it without realizing it. Suddenly we’re not just the boss. We’re the friend, the therapist, maybe even the surrogate parent. That closeness feels great, but it's also a potential liability.

I’ve been on both sides. I’ve run cultures where we were emotionally connected and others where we kept things ...

Who should you know about when it comes to startup growth? Who should you be following for the latest in growth tips? Which growth experts regularly deliver valuable, actionable content to their followers? If these questions resonate, this article is for you.

We’ve looked far and wide to find the very best in startup growth. We’ve pulled a collection of well-known startup growth leaders who have been there and done it. Everyone in this list has been part of startups that have rapidly scaled. Some have synthesised their knowledge into well regarded books, some have built their own fractional CMO services others work purely as advisors.

Matt Lerner

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewlerner/ Website - https://www.systm.co/about-ma...

Selecting the right growth agency for your startup can make or break your startup. The wrong pick can lead to months of pain and wasted resources. The right selection can rocket your startup through the rungs of growth.

Over the years, I have run an agency and worked with dozens of agencies. I’ve pretty much seen it all when it comes to marketing service companies. It’s also something I get asked a lot when speaking with founders, how do you find the right agency for your startup?

So, I have written my key criteria every startup founder should consider when researching, speaking to and selecting their next growth agency.

Startup-specific experience When hiring a startup growth agency, make sure the agency specialises in startup growth. It ...

What if one day we woke up and all of the things we set out to do in life were done? Would we be happy or sad?

This actually happened to me in the past year, and it's been freaking me out! But it's also been a cause for a ton of reflection.

As Founders, we set a ton of goals for ourselves and our startups — obviously. We work tirelessly toward those goals with the anticipation that once we accomplish them, something magical will happen.

What we rarely consider is what happens on the other side of these goals once we've crossed the finish line.

In Case You Missed It

We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success Every moment we spend pursuing an undefined goal is a complete waste of time — especially personal goals.

Why No One Tells Founde...

How do we become confident Founders when none of us have ever done this before?

As a startup CEO for over 30 years, I can tell you I have the confidence now, but when I was starting at 19... not even close. I was so out of my depth I was terrified to even tell people I was a CEO for fear they would laugh at me. And they often did.

Back then, I thought confidence was something certain people were just born with — like being tall or having good skin. Growing up, there were always those kids who seemed like they had it figured out. I assumed they had something I didn’t.

Years later I'd come to know those same supposedly confident people very well, and I'd learn a valuable lesson — no one is just "naturally confident." It all comes from experie...

What if college simply doesn't make sense for aspiring Founders — are we ready to sacrifice this sacred cow?

Last week I was having lunch with a very successful old friend who made over $100 million in his career. He wanted me to sit down and advise his 18-year-old son who had just graduated high school. The first thing he said was, "He's decided to skip college and go straight to starting his own company."

This is the first time I've heard a parent say that out loud, but I'm starting to think it certainly won't be the last.

My immediate gut reaction was going to be some defense of college, even though I dropped out as fast as I could to start my first company. But no matter how many points I sped through in my mind, I couldn't come up with...