Startups

6 things that separate founders who scale from those who stall. I've met hundreds of founders over the last decade. Some have built extraordinary companies. Others, with equally good ideas, never got past a certain point. The difference is rarely the idea. It's almost always the founder. ➡️They hire people who intimidate them. Founders who scale are not threatened by talent. They actively seek people who know more than them in specific areas. Founders who stall, hire people they can manage easily and that's a big mistake. ➡️They kill their darlings early. A product, a campaign, a strategy they personally love — if the data says no, they let it go. Stalling founders hold on too long because their identity is tied to the idea. ➡️They stay close to the consumer even when the company gets big. At Honasa Consumer Ltd., I still read reviews. I still look at what people are saying in comments. The moment you outsource your consumer understanding entirely, you start making decisions in an echo chamber. ➡️They build systems, not just momentum. Early-stage hustle can take you to a point. But scaling requires processes that work without you in the room. If everything depends on the founder, it's not a company yet. ➡️They are comfortable with being uncomfortable. Every new stage of growth feels like starting over. New problems, new pressures, new skill sets required. Founders who scale lean into that discomfort. The others avoid it and plateau. ➡️They know the difference between being busy and making progress. A full calendar is not a strategy. The founders I admire most are ruthlessly focused on a small number of things that actually move the needle. Scaling is not about working harder. It's about thinking differently at every new stage. What would you add to this list? #FounderMindset #Entrepreneurship #Startup #D2C

Is innovation killed due to bad ideas? Or from easy rejection. When “no” requires no effort, every bold idea gets filtered through risk aversion and bias. The path of least resistance becomes the path of least innovation. Amazon’s approach forced leaders to think deeply before blocking ideas. One of the businesses born of this approach is AWS, an entire business line worth billions today. The uncomfortable truth we must face up to. Most organizations are built for efficiency, not experimentation. We optimize for saying no quickly. India’s startup ecosystem raised $11B in 2024, but how many of those funded companies have cultures that genuinely encourage bottom-up innovation? Three actions you can implement for your business. 1. Create friction for saying “no” → Before rejecting an idea, ask your team to document why in writing → Make rejection more work than exploration → Track how many ideas you greenlight vs. reject 2. Embrace small experiments → Stop asking “should we do this?” Start asking “how can we test this for ₹10,000?” → Shift from permission culture to experimentation culture 3. Make your bias visible → Document your reasons for saying no—you’ll see your own patterns → Share those patterns with your team → Ask: “Am I blocking innovation or genuinely protecting resources?” The hard part isn’t having ideas. The hard part is creating a system where ideas survive contact with management. Amazon’s culture isn’t about saying yes to everything. It’s about making thoughtless rejection impossible. If this changed how you think about innovation culture, share it with a founder who’s building their next dream.

CEOs: You Don’t Need More. You Need More Leverage. Most scaling founders keep chasing: 🔹 More hires 🔹 More funding 🔹 More tools 🔹 More features But here’s the uncomfortable truth: - You’re not running out of resources. - You’re not using leverage. The Real Bottleneck? Misused Potential. Early-stage and scaling companies aren’t broken because they’re under-resourced. They’re stuck because they haven’t built systems that multiply effort. The best CEOs I’ve worked with don’t ask: ❌ “What do we still need?” They ask: ✅ “What’s the highest-leverage move we haven’t made yet?” That shift changes everything. Here’s how elite operators think in leverage, not labor: 1. The 80/20 Principle → 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs. - Cut what doesn’t move the needle. Double down on what does. 2. Strategic Delegation → Don’t delegate tasks. - Delegate decisions—and give people the context to run. 3. Compounding Moves → Invest in what grows over time: - Systems.  - Talent.  - Brand trust. - Stop resetting.  - Start reinforcing. 4. Flywheel Thinking → Build momentum that feeds itself. - One smart move should fuel the next. Quick CEO Self-Check: Block 10 minutes this week and ask yourself: - Where am I still the bottleneck? - What have we started that won’t compound? - Where are we applying effort where we should be applying leverage? Final Thought: → You don’t scale by working harder. → You scale by building systems that do the work for you. CEOs: What’s one leverage point you’ve doubled down on this year? Let’s swap strategies in the comments. ♻️ Share this with your network if it resonates. ☝️ And follow Stuart Andrews for more insights like this.

“Stop selling the future. Customers buy the present.” Yesterday, I hit an early-stage startup with some hard truths. They operate in an extremely promising tech category. Like many startups, they were selling ‘The future of X’. They say something like: “Empowering the future of sandwiches”. (I tweaked the category on purpose to make a case) In our consulting session, I explained why this is a problem: People don’t buy the future, they buy the now. Sure, we love bold visions of what could be in 10 or 15 years. But what your customers care about is: → What can you do for me right now? → How can you solve my problem today? In our example, “I’m hungry, what do you have?” This is where a lot of startups get stuck. They’re caught between trying to impress investors with dreamy statements and convincing customers to buy what they’re offering. And in doing so, their message becomes unclear. No one understands what they actually do. Especially with futuristic AI-generated images of people. (Yes, they did something like that too.) Look, I get it. You are starting, but you need to be convincing. Instead of “Empowering the future of sandwiches”… Here’s how you can speak to both the present and the future: - - We make the sandwiches you dream of when hunger hits. Visit one of our new locations today and taste for yourself. Be one of the first to try, and enjoy a drink on the house. We’re just getting started, but soon, we’ll be everywhere. Don’t say we didn’t warn you when lines get looong! (Photos of mouthwatering sandwiches and joyful cooks at work) - - Here’s the truth: Manifesting your vision is not a marketing strategy. It’s great for internal alignment, yes. But a bad tactic for customer acquisition. Your vision can inspire, but your offer must deliver value today. Demonstrate it. Focus on how you solve a real problem in the present. Clearly. Compellingly. Persuasively. That’s what drives traction, trust, and growth. Tomorrow sells to investors. Today sells to customers. - - - Hey, I’m Ezequiel Abramzon ✷ Found this post insightful? ❤️ like → ♻️ Repost → 💬 Comment → 🔔 follow me I write about #brandstrategy for #startups so #entrepreneurship is more impactful, and for that you have to #beintentional Are you a founder? Let’s “empower the future” of your startup 🤷♂️

A hard truth about startup growth teams: Being on all sides of the table (operator → investor → board member → full-stack fractional CMO), I've noticed founders often build their growth teams backwards. The typical approach: - Hire specialists for each channel - Focus solely on marketing metrics - Create departmental walls - Chase "best practices" blindly Here's why this fails: - Burns cash 2-3x faster than you gain market understanding - Creates silos that kill early-stage agility - Forces premature channel commitments - Misaligns incentives (vanity metrics vs. real growth) What actually works: 1. Start with strategic alignment - Map company metrics to marketing activities - Build systems for cross-team collaboration - Create clear feedback loops between product and marketing - Focus on scalable processes over hasty campaigns 2. Hire a strategic generalist first - Look for someone who can craft strategy AND execute - Prioritise data-driven decision making over channel expertise - Find people who can teach and enable others - Value business acumen over marketing-only experience 3. Get the foundations right - Deep customer understanding before channel selection - Cross-functional collaboration (marketing + product + sales) - Data infrastructure for measuring true growth (not vanity metrics) - Clear stakeholder communication (drop the marketing jargon) After working with hundreds of startups, here's the truth I keep coming back to: The cost of fixing a poorly structured growth team is always higher than the time it takes to build it right. The most successful founders I work with focus on the bigger picture: Building teams that operate as scalable growth systems. How are you structuring your growth team for scale? ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost to share with your network. ⚡ Want more content like this? Hit follow Maya Moufarek.

How do you get potential customers to talk to you? If you can't get potential customers to talk to you, nothing else matters. You don't have the chance to test your value proposition, your pitch, your pricing, your product, etc. If you're doing a bunch of work on these other things and not talking to potential customers... you are setting yourself up for an unpleasant date with reality. Fast-growing startups - even in the earliest days - build a discipline of talking to multiple potential customers every single day. A friend's startup (recently raised a ~$50M series B) - before they had a product, each cofounder was talking to 3+ potential customers every single day, each doing their own outbound. There are two general methods I've seen for getting potential customers to talk with you - "pre-" and "post-PMF". PRE-PMF: If you are pre-PMF, you don't know exactly who is in a situation where they'd be crazy not to buy your product... and you don't know the exact words to say to get them to meet with you. Which means you CAN'T just use any old generic outbound messaging. Because any of the words you plug in will get you a ~0.1% response rate, and 90% of those will be out-of-office replies. For Pre-PMF startups, I recommend two approaches: (1) "founder magic", and (2) "goblin mode" Founder magic is, essentially, saying: "I'm cool, you're cool, let's talk." It is not a sales pitch, because no sales pitch will work at this stage. The message comes across as if it couldn't have been written by a salesperson. This is how most early-stage startups meet with 5-10+ potential customers per week, and as you sell and learn you quickly evolve towards post-PMF approaches. Goblin mode what you do if founder magic doesn't work. It means just doing crazy things to meet with potential customers. If that means flying to their office with cupcakes, or going to that conference across the country tomorrow - you do whatever it takes to talk to 5+ potential customers per day/week. POST-PMF: The distinction is - you now know exactly WHO, in exactly WHAT SITUATION, would be weird NOT to buy your product. When you know this, you can do super weird things to "own" the situation. This might just be scaling outbound, but often it is something way more creative - like partnerships, affiliates, conferences, writing a book, sending samurai swords, etc. The point of post-PMF pipeline approaches is to make it weird for people in this situation NOT to meet with you. -- So what? If you're a founder, and you are not meeting with 5-10+ potential customers per week, I promise you this doesn't get easier after you've built more product, made a fancy website, hired a big team, etc. It takes a while to figure out, but you need so much less than you think to get it going. Just DM people. Or email them. Or call. You don't yet need the fancy Clay tables or even a CRM. Just start talking with potential customers, and see if they pull.

How to de-risk your startup idea using "riskiest assumption tests" (and why it’s the most important thing you’re not doing yet) Bringing something new into the world—whether a startup, a product, or a bold idea inside a company—is inherently risky. But not all risks are created equal. The difference between an idea that succeeds and one that fails often comes down to whether the team identified and tested the riskiest assumptions early. Here’s a simple, powerful method to reduce risk systematically. 🔍 Step 1: Identify Your Assumptions Every new idea is built on a stack of assumptions. To uncover them, use “We believe…” statements. For example, for an AI-powered career coaching app for recent grads: 1. We believe recent grads want personalized job search support. 2. We believe they trust AI to provide that support. 3. We believe we can reach them through campus career centers. 4. We believe they’ll pay $10/month for the premium version. Write each assumption on a separate sticky note. Include assumptions across product, customer, go-to-market, pricing, operations, team, and stakeholders. The most critical areas early on are: *Do customers want this? *Can I reach them? *Will they pay? *Can I build it? 📈 Step 2: Plot Assumptions on a 2x2 Matrix (see below) Create a grid: X-axis: Risk to the business if this is wrong. Y-axis: Level of uncertainty—level of evidence you have. Plot each sticky note on the matrix. ⚠️ This isn't about exact numbers--it's judgment-based. You’re identifying what's both high risk and high uncertainty. 🔥 Step 3: Identify the Top 5 Riskiest Assumptions From the upper-right quadrant, choose the top 5. Then assess the cost (money + time) of testing each. If something’s too expensive to test (e.g., requires a clinical trial), start with a cheaper one. Example: We believe recent grads trust AI career tools. 🧪 Step 4: Design a Real Test Test it with a landing page and short demo. Run $100 in social ads targeting recent grads with this headline: | “Let AI help you land your dream job—meet your AI career coach.” Track clicks, sign-ups, and responses to: | "Would you use this? Why or why not?” This gives you real evidence—fast. No guessing. ♾️Always be testing Continue to systematically move through testing your riskiest assumptions. 🎯 Why This Matters Testing your riskiest assumptions early: ✅ Shorten the feedback loop ✅ Reduce waste ✅ Focus limited resources on what matters ✅ Give yourself the best shot at success Innovation isn’t about being certain. It’s about being disciplined in your curiosity. 🗓️ Want to practice this? Join me at 4PM today at Raleigh-Durham Startup Week for a hands-on workshop and walk through this method you startup. If you’ve done riskiest assumption testing before, I’d love to hear what your biggest learning was. Drop it in the comments 👇 #LIPostingDayApril #startups #innovation

India’s Rocket Moment: Global Demand Soars, But Can We Deliver at Scale? From Mission Mode to Market Mode, India’s Space Sector Hits a Crossroads. India’s rockets are having a global moment; everyone wants them, but we don’t have enough to sell. Former ISRO Chairman S. Somanath says it plainly: Demand is booming, but manufacturing capacity is the bottleneck. India’s launch systems are cutting-edge. But unlike off-the-shelf goods, they’re built in mission mode, slow, centralised, and bespoke. That model won’t work in a world that wants volume launches and commercial scale. ✅ What’s Holding India Back? ISRO’s supply chain still leans on a few core suppliers, with limited capacity. Spacecraft and rocket assembly is still in-house and one-off. The global commercial space economy is exploding, but India risks missing the bus without scalable production. ✅ Enter India’s Space Startups: AgniKul Cosmos & Pixxel 1. Agnikul: 3D-printed rocket engines, private launch pad, and modular SSLVs. Raised $26.7M, aiming for 24 launches/year. Customers? ISRO and global satellite clients. 2. Pixxel: India’s first private satellite constellation. Focused on climate & Earth data via hyperspectral imaging and is now targeting the $19B Earth observation market by 2029. 18 more satellites to launch, riding on SpaceX rockets. At Coherent Market Insights, I have worked with such innovative startups that are changing the space economy. DM to know more. ✅ Numbers That Matter - India’s space economy: $8.4B (2025) → $44B (by 2033). - Global space pie: $1.8T by 2035—India aims for 8% share. - Startup boom: 190+ space tech firms since 2021. - Government reforms: From FDI to IN-SPACe, the policy tailwinds are strong. ✅ Why This Matters for the Indian Industry Advanced manufacturing & composites will scale, high-skilled jobs in deep tech, analytics, and supply chain. Satellite data & services become a key Indian export. Downstream impact: From agri to climate, telecom to defence. ✅ The Big Pivot India Needs India must shift from space “projects” to “products.” That means: Building tooling hubs, not just labs. Training manufacturing talent, not just scientists. Unlocking private scale, not just public prestige. This is India’s shot at being not just a spacefaring nation, but a space economy superpower. Agnikul and Pixxel are lighting the spark. Can the rest of the ecosystem catch fire? The rocket tech is ready. The world is watching. All that’s left is to build. #space #innovation #India #manufacturing #startup #exports

Great companies have been built by founders refusing to take “no” as an answer. But for every one that succeeds, there are countless startups that fail because founders were unwilling to listen, collaborate, or adapt. Founders who challenge the status quo often appear disagreeable because they defy conventional norms. They drive change by questioning existing patterns and persuading others to embrace new ways of thinking and acting. But the paradox is clear: while disagreeableness fuels innovation, being 'uncoachable' can cripple startups. Striking the right balance is key: - 𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝. Question assumptions but stay open to feedback. It’s not about opposing everything—just the things that need to change. - 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝, 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲. Push boundaries, but keep your team on your side. Innovation happens when the team feels empowered, not alienated. Get their buy-in to drive change. - 𝐏𝐢𝐯𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧. Stay committed, but be flexible. Disagreeableness should help cut through complacency, not reject every new idea. Be coachable—know when to pivot or double down based on feedback. - 𝐁𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲. Don’t oppose for the sake of it. Understand why industry norms exist, and challenge the ones that limit growth with clear reasons. --- Find balance between being disagreeable and coachable. Challenge old ways, but also listen, learn, and lead with your team. Innovation is about more than breaking rules—it’s about knowing when to take feedback and transform together.

Here are 5 big mistakes I've observed many corporate highflyers turned founders make, and what I suggest you do instead. 1. Adhering to rigid corporate structures This can stifle creativity in a startup environment. Quick decision-making is hindered by hierarchical communication. Agility and innovation are key for entrepreneurs. Corporate habits need to be unlearned to thrive. Lesson: Embrace flexibility and open communication in your startup. Empower your team to make decisions. 2. Fearing failure and avoiding risks In the corporate world, failure is often stigmatized. However, entrepreneurs need to take calculated risks. Failure should be seen as a learning opportunity. Avoiding risks can lead to missed growth opportunities. Lesson: Encourage a culture where failure is a stepping stone. Embrace risks and learn from failures. 3. Relying on rigid long-term planning Corporate environments often have detailed long-term plans. However, startups operate in a dynamic landscape. Rigid plans can quickly become obsolete. Adaptability is crucial for navigating challenges. Lesson: Develop flexible short-term plans that can be adjusted. Regularly reassess and pivot as needed. 4. Micromanaging and over-controlling In corporations, control is often centralized. However, micromanagement can demotivate startup teams. Trusting and empowering employees is essential. Entrepreneurs should focus on high-level strategy. Lesson: Delegate tasks and trust your team's abilities. Provide guidance and support, not constant oversight. 5. Neglecting company culture and values Corporate culture is often pre-established and slow to change. However, startup culture is shaped from the beginning. Neglecting culture can lead to misaligned teams. A strong culture attracts and retains top talent. Lesson: Intentionally define and cultivate your startup's culture. Align your values with your mission and vision. What big mistakes have you made on your entrepreneurial journey? Let me know in the comments.