Notes on Building
Field notes on building a business that runs without you.
Short essays on the founder’s real job: structure, systems, and leading what you built. The thinking behind every program.
New notes every week · The best go to The Letter first
The latest
Every note, newest first.
-
How to Start a Business With Little to No Money: The 90-Day Plan
You don’t need capital to test a business idea. You need evidence. Here’s how to validate demand, land your first customers, and fund growth…
-
Before You Build: The Disciplined Way to Start a Business
Most new businesses don’t fail on execution. They fail because no one wanted what was built. Here is the sequence that fixes that.
-
You Don’t Need to Know More.
Most founders don’t have an information problem. They have a gap between what they know and what they do. A 30-minute audit to close…
-
The Floor Isn’t the Story. The Rebuild Is.
Rock bottom teaches you nothing on its own. What you build on it does. Six things the rebuild actually requires.
-
Quit the Plan. Never the Purpose.
‘Never give up on your dreams’ is the most repeated advice in business, and the most incomplete. The founders who last are flexible about…
-
Natural-Born Leaders Are Made.
Some founders start with an edge. Few finish with it. Why ‘natural-born leader’ is a head start at best and an excuse at worst,…
-
Someday Is Not a Date.
Founders count runway in months. Few count their own. Life is short is not a cliché, it is a constraint, and constraints are what…
-
Soft Skills Are the Hard Part.
Hard skills get you in the room. Soft skills decide what happens there. Why founders hire for the CV, fire for everything else, and…
-
Ideas Are Cheap. Selection Is the Skill.
Most brainstorming produces volume, not decisions. A five-step discipline for founders who want to leave the room with one idea worth executing.
“Build it so it runs without you. Then decide if you want to stay.”
Tony McCabe · Founder advisor
Get The Letter.
One idea, one action, and the tool to use it. Every Sunday, free.