Watch Competitors. Don't Build Their Roadmap.
Competitor awareness is not the same as competitor obsession. One keeps you informed. The other replaces your roadmap with theirs.
Pillar
Entrepreneurship
Lessons from starting and running ventures
9 articles
One Vendor vs. Four: The Coordination Cost Nobody Calculates
The cost of managing multiple technology vendors doesn't show up on any invoice. It shows up in your time, your team's attention, and the problems that fall through the gaps between vendor contracts.
When to Automate and When to Hire
Automation and hiring solve different problems. Conflating them is one of the more expensive strategic mistakes a growing business makes.
The Real Cost of Context-Switching
Gerald Weinberg's research shows that switching between two projects costs 20% of productive capacity to each. Three projects: 40%. Founders run eight simultaneously and wonder why nothing ships.
When to Fire a Client
The clients who consume the most capacity rarely produce the most revenue. The math on who stays is straightforward. The conversation is harder.
Building Systems Before You Need Them
The businesses that scale cleanly built their systems when they didn't need them yet. By the time you need a system urgently, you're too busy to build it right.
What Client Retention Actually Measures
Retention is often described as a metric. It's actually a verdict — the aggregate judgment of clients who had options, and chose to stay.
Pricing for Value, Not Time
Hourly pricing aligns your incentive with speed and the client's incentive with volume. Value-based pricing aligns both with outcomes. The math isn't close.
Running a Business With Your Spouse: What 14 Years Taught Us
Brian and I have been building together since 2012. We're married, we're co-founders, and we share a home office. Here's what actually works.