How To Founder

What if the skills that made you successful are now holding your company back?

Rand Fishkin built Moz to 150 employees before admitting he'd become the company's biggest bottleneck. His mistake wasn't incompetence. He kept doing the job that worked at fifteen people.

In this episode, we map the specific shifts required at each growth milestone. What behaviors to abandon. What new muscles to build. Why the ceiling you'...

Your pipeline is lying to you.

A sales coach tracked a client's team for ninety days and found forty percent of their pipeline would never close. Those zombie deals weren't just dead weight. They were stealing attention from the fifteen percent that could actually convert.

Most founders treat every lead like a lottery ticket, terrified that the one they disqualify might have been the big win. So they chase. They follow up. Th...

You're staring at the decision: hire your first person or stay solo. Everyone says you need a team to scale. But what if they're wrong?

Jason Cohen ran SmartBear Software solo at seven figures and turned down acquisitions because staying solo was his competitive advantage. This episode isn't about choosing the "right" path—it's about understanding you're choosing between two different games. Solo gives ...

What if your alignment meetings are just expensive procrastination?

Jared Christopher built Yellowfin BI's sales team to 340% revenue growth in two years without a single alignment meeting. Each regional director had complete authority with one rule: defend your decisions with data. While competitors held stakeholder sessions, Yellowfin shipped.

In this episode, Blima Ehrentreu, founder and CEO of The Designers Group, breaks down...

What if paying people to show up is the problem?

Joey Rockey has built 29 businesses, with 25 now running without him. His secret isn't better delegation or time management. It's designing businesses where employees get paid for results, not hours. Hotel housekeepers who finish by noon and earn more than hourly workers. Marketing teams compensated per customer acquired who iterate in real time. Line cooks paid on attendance ...

Most founders think organizational design is something you do once you're big. Wrong.

Your company already has structure. Communication patterns exist. Informal networks formed the day your second employee started. The only question is whether you designed it or it designed itself. Chris and Stephanie break down when structure helps versus when it kills momentum. They explore why startups fail by copying big company org charts, ...

What if the most unethical thing you do in sales is refuse to apply pressure?

Most founders avoid psychological triggers in sales because they feel manipulative. The result? Prospects drown in information, freeze in indecision, and walk away from solutions they genuinely need. The discomfort founders avoid creating is often the service prospects desperately require.

In this episode, Wes Schaeffer, known as "The Sales Whisperer,&...

What transforms a lone visionary into the leader of a movement?

In this episode, Chris and Anthony unpack the first follower principle and reveal what early believers are actually buying when they choose to follow you. Spoiler: it's not your product, your pitch, or even your vision. It's the identity upgrade they get from being first.

You'll discover why Infusionsoft's early customers weren't buying software but b...

Eighty-four percent of B2B sales start with a referral—so why are most founders still waiting for them to happen naturally?

In this episode, Brandon Barnum, CEO of HOA.com and author of Raving Referrals, reveals the system that turns referrals from occasional windfalls into predictable pipeline. Discover why asking for referrals at the beginning of a relationship (not the end) changes everything, how to automate referral requests so...

What if everything you've been told about burnout is wrong?

In this raw and revealing episode, hosts Anthony Franco, Chris Franks, and Stephanie Hayes dismantle the traditional definition of founder burnout. It’s not just about working too hard—it’s about a dangerous misalignment between your energy and your vision. Discover why "rest" might be the wrong prescription, how the "Practitioner's Paradox" is s...

What if that "non-dilutive capital" just put your house on the line?

Most founders think equity is their only option, but 73% of businesses seeking financing actually apply for loans. The gap isn't about availability—it's about understanding what you're signing up for. In this episode, we break down SBA loans, personal guarantees, convertible debt, factoring, and the brutal truth about when debt accelerates you...

Why do some founders get replies from total strangers while your emails get ignored?

Research from Boomerang analyzed five million emails and found messages between fifty and one hundred twenty-five words get the highest response rates. Yet most founders either write novels or fire off three-sentence pitches. When one founder launched his SaaS product, he built his early customer base through cold email by spending thirty minutes re...

Founders spend an average of fourteen months running a business they know is dying. Why?

In this raw, unfiltered episode, Anthony Franco opens up about the collapse of MC Squares—a company doing four hundred thousand in monthly revenue that imploded after an Amazon glitch tanked sales by fifty percent overnight. Stephanie Hays shares her battle with a zombie company: profitable, stable, loved by customers, but trapped in limbo with ...

You sold your company. The wire cleared. Six months later, you're more anxious than when you were working 80-hour weeks.

Most founders spend years planning their exit strategy and zero hours planning what happens the day after the deal closes. Tom Freiling led a digital publishing company to NASDAQ, sold it, then launched into his next venture without taking a breath. Looking back, he calls it his biggest mistake. The problem wa...

Your benefits broker just bought a boat. You paid for it.

Mid-size companies waste an average of eighteen hundred fifty six dollars per employee annually on hidden broker fees their advisors never disclose. These aren't mistakes. They're business models built on your ignorance. When your broker's compensation rises with your costs, fiduciary duty dies. They'll smile, bring donuts to enrollment meetings, and quietly c...

You bought the expensive firewall. You paid for the certifications. You still wake up wondering if one phishing email could wipe you out.

Most founders throw money at cybersecurity like it's insurance against catastrophe. They stack tools, chase compliance badges, and assume more spending equals more protection. Meanwhile, the three attack vectors responsible for 82% of breaches sit wide open because they're boring to fix an...

When was the last time you made a business decision before asking what it costs in taxes?

Most founders design their operations first, then call their accountant in March to calculate the damage. They hire in July, buy equipment in November, distribute profits in December, and never consider tax implications until the bill lands. Mike Jesowshek spent a decade watching entrepreneurs bleed five figures annually, not from missing deduc...

What if that pit in your stomach before a difficult conversation isn't weakness—it's wisdom? Most founders think nervousness before hard talks signals they're unprepared. The reality? Zero anxiety means you're about to be too harsh or unclear. That discomfort is your nervous system telling you the stakes are real and the relationship matters. In this episode, we break down why calibrating your emotional state—findin...

Why do the processes you create end up ignored? You document workflows, create templates, build systems—and then nobody uses them. The problem isn't discipline. It's design.

Most founders treat processes like chores instead of products. They skip user research (who's actually using this?), ignore usability (can someone follow this under pressure?), and never iterate. Colin Gray turned this around by building The Podc...