Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
My best productivity hack? Create a deadline you can't meet.
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Hey Reader, A founder told me this week he was delaying our strategy session. "I'll schedule it when I have all the info together," he said. "I don't want to have to reschedule." I told him I'd rather he book it immediately and be forced to reschedule later. Why? Because he was falling into the "Preparation Trap." It's a high-brow form of procrastination where you convince yourself that endless research and planning is productive work. Clarity Filter Insight It's a high-brow form of procrastination where you convince yourself that endless research and planning is productive work. [Share on LinkedIn] | [Share on X] It's not. It's a cycle of inaction. Without a hard deadline, 99% of founders will get bogged down. Guaranteed. The simple act of setting a date on the calendar is a powerful forcing function. It creates urgency. It instantly clarifies what's truly important versus what's just noise. The pressure forces you to focus and execute. Stop waiting until you're "ready." Use this two-step playbook instead:
What if you're not ready when the day comes? Good. It is far more efficient to reschedule a meeting that forced real progress than to perfectly prepare for one that never happens. — Dmitry P.S. If this email made you think of a fellow founder who is stuck "getting ready," do them a favor and forward it to them. Accountability is the ultimate accelerator. |
Clarity Filter
Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Hey Reader, Founders love to pitch an inevitable future. They see a clear shift in the market, build a product for that future, and launch. Then they get silent buyers and a dead pipeline. They assume the product is broken. Or the marketing is wrong. But the problem is usually much simpler: they are early. And in an early-stage startup, being ahead of your time is functionally indistinguishable from being wrong. A market can be directionally attractive and still be a terrible opportunity...
Hey Reader, In my last email, I broke down how Sam Altman’s relationship network literally purchased his first company's failure for millions. Most builders read that and thought: "Great, but I don't live in SF and I don't know any VCs." You are looking at networking all wrong. You don’t need billionaires. You need a net of adjacent peers who are 6 to 12 months ahead of you. If you want to know if your current network is there yet, here's a handy validator for ya: Look at your calendar for...
Hey Reader, Founders love the myth of the exceptional product. They believe Silicon Valley legends won because they built better software. Here is the reality. Sam Altman's first company, Loopt, had no real traction. It failed as a consumer product. It was acquired for millions anyway. Not because the tech was brilliant. Because Altman had well-connected VC relationships. When the app failed, his network caught him. The relationships were the infrastructure that literally purchased his...