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“Just Be Yourself” is wonderful Founder advice 6% of the time

In startups, authenticity is valuable, but unfiltered honesty can be nuclear. The idea of being our authentic selves sounds great, but it assumes that what comes out of our mouths doesn’t carry serious consequences. When we are responsible for people, money, and reputation, being ourselves without a filter can destroy everything we have built.

This isn't a knock on who we are as people. It is a reminder that no matter who we are, we have a responsibility to apply a filter, and the less we understand that responsibility, the more it will cost us.

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Can I Hire Someone to Run My Startup for Me? Passing the reins sounds easy until you realize some parts of a start...

As a startup Founder, I've got a very long list of issues with myself, and that's just fine.

Want to hear my list?

• I'm obsessive. I can't stop working even when I hate what I'm doing.
• I'm hell-bent on control even though I know what I do offers next to none.
• I ignore successes and play failures on an infinite loop.
• I have zero attention span; I've already forgotten the opening line of this article.

Sound familiar? Maybe awful? It used to be for me. But at some point, I stopped trying so hard to "fix" me and started asking myself, "What is it about my fucked-up-ness that I can harness for good?"

What if there isn't a fix but instead a whole new world that opens up when we embrace how messed up we are?

The False Prophet of Fix

Hundreds of t...

Can we stop trying to replace our in-office culture with a remote work version?

I was a hardcore 80-hour-a-week office guy for over two decades. I prided myself on being the first one in and the last one out. The office was my badge of honor. It was where I measured my discipline, my loyalty, and my seriousness about work. But if you asked me to go back to an office today, even though this is my dream job, I would quit on the spot.

That does not mean I think remote work is universally better. It is not. It works beautifully for some people and terribly for others. What it does mean is that now that remote work has had time to marinate, we can look at it with more clarity. We can start to see what it is, and more importantly what it is not. ...

Is it possible to recover from burnout?

Burnout doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’ve slammed into the same wall every founder eventually hits.

The danger is mistaking your own exhaustion for your startup’s fate. Burnout feels permanent. It isn’t. Treat it like a setback, not a stop sign.

The real question isn’t if burnout will happen — it’s what you’ll do when it does. Some founders walk away too soon. Others find a second wind and do their best work on the other side.

We're So Connected — And Totally Lonely Despite endless digital tools, Founders are facing record levels of isolation, and only real human connection can fix it.

You Only Think You Work Hard There's a common misconception about 'working hard' within startups. Let's cha...

Are we really aligned with everyone around us — our employees, Co-Founders, or even our spouses?

After 30+ years of working my ass off to find "synergy" with these three groups, I learned a painful lesson — try as I have, I'm not fully aligned with the people in my life.

I want to be. They are all awesome people. But I've come to realize that there are some important nuances that prevent Founders from ever being 100% on the same side of the table as the people around us.

This has been a source of endless frustration for me, and certainly for those around me. Over time, I've come to acknowledge and support the differences. But first, I had to figure out what the hell was so broken!

Should Startups be a Family? Running a startup isn't a grou...

When does having "more" become a liability?

As Founders, we all start with nothing, so we're heavily conditioned to keep asking for more — more customers, more revenue, more capital, more resources. More is always better, because we have so little.

Yet if things go well, at some point we do have more stuff. We've got a successful company, a great income, and lots of toys. For the first time, we start to realize that getting "more" starts to become extremely expensive, and potentially not worth it all.

So, how do we figure out what that perfect balance is for us? How do we avoid falling into the trap of not being able to stop ourselves?

Who am I Really Competing Against? What if we're all competing in a game we can't actually win?

How to Fin...

Entrepreneurship saved my life. It took me from a poor, under-privileged kid to someone who finally felt like I had control of my future.

I strongly believe it has the power to alleviate the poor conditions of millions of people around the world, but how realistic is that transformation? Is access to meaningful entrepreneurship only accessible to those with means?

It's a question that's been gnawing at me for decades.

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Where to Find Opportunities in a Recession When crisis is unavoidable, strong Founders will seek out the opportunities during a recession.

How to be a Happy Entrepreneur Everything about entrepreneurship works against our basic human desires for comfort, stability and predictability. So, how do we keep ou...

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...

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.

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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...