This is my last article of the year before we go on break. Not because I’m tired of writing, but because even operators need to step back and recharge. If not, you just keep burning. As you’re reflecting on the…
I missed my newsletter deadline last week. Not by a few hours. By days. And honestly, it bothered me not just because I let you down, but more because I knew exactly why it happened; I didn’t have the right…
We’re in the thick of performance season. You’re either closing out this year’s reviews or gearing up for the next cycle. For many line managers and individual contributors, this period is draining. You’re collecting everything you’ve done, what went well,…
Let me start with what most people see. The Office Christmas Party. Silicon Valley’s absurd company retreats. Uber’s infamous scandals. When off-sites make the media, it’s always the same story: excessive drinking, wild behavior, entertainment gone wrong. I’m not disputing…
A founder told me last week they’re expanding to three new markets in Q1. They had market research. Revenue projections. Customer validation. What they didn’t have: anyone with bandwidth to actually run it. These are among the challenges that hypergrowth…
Time to Value: 6 minutes “We have to check with finance.” This was a statement I dreaded early in my career because it meant defending my strategy, building a business case, and seeking approval on something I was 100% sure…
Time to Value: 8 mins A few weeks ago, I wrote about why Q4 isn’t about saving 2025. It’s about setting up 2026. The response was clear: everyone gets the mindset shift, but executing it while managing performance reviews, bonus…
So lately I’ve been thinking about operational debt. You hear plenty about technical debt: legacy code, messy product decisions, all the stuff that gets attention because it’s easy to spot. But operational debt is quieter. It’s what creeps in as…
Time to Value: 5 mins The startup journey is like parenting. You can’t use the same playbook at every stage. What works at $500K ARR breaks at $2M. The mental model for finding product-market fit is completely different from driving…
Time to Value: 7 mins As a follow-up to last week’s “Q4 Isn’t About Saving 2025—It’s About Setting Up 2026,” let’s discuss how we actually review our past year. Throughout my career, I’ve noticed year-end reflection is often superficial—we only…