The Daily Founder

Do you like clarity? You dream up solutions, craft roadmaps, and chase that ever-elusive vision. But the reality of an entrepreneurial journey? It's a swirling fog of uncertainty. New markets emerge, pivots become necessary, and unforeseen challenges pop up left right and center. So, what's a control-craving founder to do? Embrace the ambiguity. And here's why: • Innovation thrives in the gray zone. Disruption rarely emerges fr...

As a founder, you're constantly pitching your vision. Whether it's to investors, potential customers, or even your own team, you need to be a master storyteller. But simply telling people how great your idea is won't be enough. You need to show them. Today, we’ll try to improve how you can better showcase what you got. Here are 4 ways I’ve encountered that do just that. Pick at least one today and try it out! 1: Paint a Picture...

Looking to create a meaningful and lasting solution? Well, a solution starts with a problem. So before looking into solutions, you gotta identify and understand the problem. Today, we’re looking for pain points and let them be the driver for creativity and innovation. Identify a pain you face as a customer, user, community member, or any other role you might have. Answer these two questions: - Is it a big enough problem to jus...

Do you trust your gut? I think in many situations it’s wise to trust your instincts. But on an entrepreneurial journey there are so many uncertainties that it’s also wise to recognize when to question your initial gut feeling and get some data to back it up. Don’t ignore a gut feeling, there’s probably something there to investigate, but don’t think it’s enough to take big decisions. 

So today’s challenge: Follow up your gut feel...

Let’s build a prototype today! Why? Prototypes allow you to test if your ideas and assumptions are actually true. It saves you time and money to first build prototypes and test with them before building and designing your full product or service offer. Going on a prototyping journey gives you more confidence and actual data if it’s technically possible, if anybody would actually want it and how it should look like.

So let’s create ...

Nobody really gives a flying f*** about what you do - a very liberating realization, at least it was for me. It just means you should do you, go do your thing, make stuff happen, don’t overthink it. But what will other people think? - Nobody cares! Of course your friends and family care about you, but we tend to drastically overestimate how much others actually think about us and what we do. In reality, everybody’s got their own s...

Let’s celebrate today! It's so important to celebrate your wins. In entrepreneurship we’re experiencing frequent and unpredictable ups and downs , which can be rather unsettling. Every day is a journey and the low moments of uncertainty and doubt are inevitable. You will question yourself, your model, your team. When that tide turns again (and it will), then take the time to celebrate and reflect on that win. It will serve as your...

How does your network look like? How much time do you spend with whom and why? The 33% rule is a great way to maximize your networking potential. The 33% rule states that one third of your network should be people you can learn from, who once stood where you stand. The benefits are obvious. Use the wisdom and experience of others who have done it before. One third should be people in the same boat as you, peers who inspire you,...

Plenty of ideas, but not sure where to start? Here comes the ICE score.

ICE, for Impact, Confidence and Ease, is a simple framework to help you pick your next battle. Rate your ideas, features, options or whatever you want to prioritize on a scale from 1-10 in these three dimensions, add up the points and sort for the highest, there you go. You got your winners. So for today, try out the ICE score for whatever it is you want to ...

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” – Mary Kay Ash Let’s see where our minds can take us today with this little exercise: Step 1: Where do you think is your limit? Step 2: What do you think is needed to break through it? Step 3: Let’s assume for a second that this would be easily solved. What w...

Just build it and they will come. Sounds very risky and overly confident, don’t you think? Here’s a better way: The Lean Startup - the methodology created and championed by Eric Ries helps us build products better and faster. The core principle is to keep going in the iterative and continuous cycle of Build - Measure - Learn. The idea is to only build small iterations of your product to then measure the impact and learn as fast...

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” - Henry Ford Feeling strong resistance? Make it your friend and let it lift you up as today’s challenge! What is it that is going against you? Can you think of a way you can use it to your advantage somehow? Let me know in the comments wherever you’re getting this and consider joining and sharing in the community ...

We’re all biased. Whether we like it or not, but it helps to know and how our mind works. This is where Daniel Kahnemann’s groundbreaking book “Thinking, fast and slow” offers great insights into the two systems guiding our thinking.

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• System 1: Our intuitive, automatic thinking that relies on heuristics and biases to make quick judgments. It's fast, efficient, but prone to errors.
• Sys...

As a founder you get a lot of advice from many different people, wanted or unwanted. Investors, coaches, customers, employees, friends, partners, the neighbor’s uncle…everyone has an opinion. Some of it is very valuable. Most of it is not. And that’s the challenge with advice: high variability of value and high volume. Today, let’s take a first step figuring out which pieces of advice you may want to take up. List the people in y...

As a founder, questions like:

• How do I acquire customers?
• How much should I spend on marketing?
• Am I actually making money?

are central to the journey and you gotta be confident in anwering them.

Enter Unit Economics.

Think of unit economics as the profitability of a single customer acquisition, product sale, or any core unit within your business model. It's about understanding the revenue generated by this unit and the c...

The Comfort Zone - a cozy, familiar and safe place, sure, but it’s not fertile land to grow anything, it’s where you rest. Innovation, growth and resilience are built outside of it and in discomfort. So challenge yourself, regularly, deliberately, as calculated exploration and with a growth mindset. This doesn’t mean you should spend all your time outside your comfort zone and one can overdo it of course. The goal is not to run in ...

Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king. Whether you like it or not, this saying, well, kinda says it all. Sir Richard Branson puts it this way: “Never take your eyes off the cash flow because it’s the lifeblood of business.” Peter Drucker: “Entrepreneurs believe that profit is what matters most in a new enterprise. But profit is secondary. Cash flow matters most.” Jack Welch: “If I had to run a company on three ...

The Golden Circle. Let’s circle back to Day 002, when we were talking about purpose - your WHY. Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle is a simple yet powerful framework that helps leaders and organizations communicate their purpose and inspire action. It’s made up of three concentric circles: The outermost circle is WHAT, representing the products and services you offer. The middle circle is HOW, representing the unique processes and v...

Being a founder is like juggling flaming chainsaws while sprinting uphill. Time becomes your most precious resource, constantly slipping through your fingers. Yet, even with limited hours in the day, tasks seem to expand to fill every available second. This, my friends, is the insidious reality of Parkinson's Law.

Work seems to expand so as to fill the time available for its completion." In simpler terms, if you give yourself a wee...