Today I read an article that detailed how individuals borrow against their assets. The piece goes into detail about how and why to use this strategy, but one section jumped out at me. It gave examples of founders and senior executives who’ve borrowed against their company stock to access cash while maintaining their ownership stakes. A few months ago, I shared my thoughts on founders derisking without selling the company. This article highlights another path for founders to consider.

Building a company often takes many years, during which founders take low salaries. It’s understandable that founders may need some liquidity as they transition through life stages while building their companies. Selling the entire company isn’t the only path available to them. The examples in the article include founders and CEOs at FedEx, Tesla, and Shift4Payments, all of which are publicly traded companies. Many founders won’t have the same options available to them as those folks do, but the examples are still food for thought.

Founders shouldn’t let concerns about liquidity limit their visions or how big they dream. If they want to swing for the fences, they should! They can rest assured that there will be opportunities to access capital along the way.

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Today marks the end of my sixty-seventh week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week sixty-seven:

• Short week – Monday was a holiday, so this was a four-day week. Short weeks are nice. The extra day makes a difference. I’d imagine a lot of people took the entire week off.
• Systems – I want to implement systems that help me work on things that are important to me in a healthy and sustainable way. Looking forward to doing that in the second half of the year.
• Events – In-person events are coming back. I’m starting to see more scheduled for this fall. Many are hybrid—they offer a virtual option. I’m curious to see if attendance will be back to pre-pandemic levels.      

Week sixty-seven was a short one. Next week, the pace will be back to normal.

I met with a founder who wants to help consumers make more educated purchasing decisions. She wants to empower consumers to drive impact through their spending. I’ve always been intrigued by solutions that help smaller players harness their collective power because I believe that individuals and small businesses can have a massive impact when their disparate actions are aggregated and focused.

Buying clubs and other organizations whose intent is to focus consumer buying power have been around for a long time, but they haven’t truly harnessed consumers’ power. Technology is now making it possible to do so on a whole other level, and it’s having a big impact. Robinhood, for example, empowered retail traders to sway the stock market—that could be the new norm.

A huge opportunity exists for founders to create solutions that help consumers harness the power of their wallets. They were nice-to-haves before, but I think they’ve become must-haves. Consumers have seen how powerful they can be when they align with others who are liked-minded, and they’re searching for solutions that help them do it more.

Today I had independent conversations with two entrepreneurs at different stages of their journeys. One just exited his second company and is beginning to think about what problem he wants to solve next. The other is still building his first company. Both of them mentioned that they’d spent considerable time identifying what they need in an early core team and recruiting people who fit those criteria.

I went a bit deeper, and both revealed gaps in their abilities or experiences that could prevent them from being successful. They’re both smart, super talented, and successful—and very self-aware and upfront about their limitations.

No one is good at everything. We all have shortcomings. But not everyone will admit to them. That’s too bad because being transparent about shortcomings can actually help founders. Sounds counterintuitive, I know. Many founders think they have to be great at everything—superhuman, practically—but that’s not realistic or sustainable. Acknowledging their shortcomings can help them understand what gaps they need to fill to round out their team. Recruiting efforts can be more focused and attract candidates who know what they’re good at. And it supports a culture of teamwork—people pay attention to what the leader does and follow suit.

Founders who want to build great businesses should consider being transparent about their shortcomings. It’s a great way to turn something that could be perceived as a negative into a superpower that can propel you to new heights.

As a founder, I made tons of mistakes. (I often refer to this as stepping on landmines.) Recently I shared one of my more painful stories with a friend. He asked a few questions about why my decision proved incorrect, which I answered. He felt the flaws in my decision should have been apparent from the start and couldn’t understand why I’d made that decision.

The old saying that hindsight is 20/20 is true. Things are often crystal clear when you look backward. You usually have the benefit of complete information. Being in the middle of a situation is very different: you have imperfect information and, often, time constraints.

I explained to my friend what I had perceived the situation to be as it was unfolding versus what I later learned had actually happened. He then understood.

Making decisions with imperfect information is hard, and I’ve gotten it wrong lots of times. I try to make the best decision I can with the information I have. When I finally have the luxury of hindsight, I try not to focus on the outcome. Instead, I aim to learn. In my experience, regardless of the outcome, there’s always something to be learned when you can see everything more clearly.

Hindsight shouldn’t be used to second-guess or critique past decisions. Founders should be careful not to fall into this mental trap. It’s better used as a tool to help people understand what worked and didn't work so they can improve future decisions.

This weekend I had some great conversations with groups of people. Lots of catch-up chat, but people were also talking about shopping. A few things jumped out at me:

• Amazon – For years, I’ve heard people in social settings talk about how they find everything they need on Amazon. But this weekend, no one mentioned shopping at Amazon. Amazon is still a major online retailer and I’m sure many of these people still shop there regularly, but what they wanted to talk about was smaller merchants they’d found online.
• Specific items – People mentioned spending time researching and looking for specific items.
• Patience – When they found exactly what they were looking for, they were patient. The specific item was more important than finding something that could be delivered in a day or two.
• Wardrobe – Working from home has changed how people dress and how they think about their wardrobe. Many don’t think they’ll go back to having a work wardrobe and a nonwork wardrobe.

My “study” has a super-small sample size and isn’t scientific at all, but it got me thinking. Delivery speed and low cost have dominated how consumers shop for a long time, but this may be starting to change. So might how we outfit ourselves. Companies set dress codes and people adhered to those policies, which informed how and where they bought clothes. Now, people are setting their own individual dress codes and focusing on what matters to them.

I think we’re starting to see (or maybe I’m just noticing) a shift in the way consumers shop and why they shop. I’ll be watching this more closely. If this is a trend that continues, it could have a major impact on e-commerce and retail.

Happy July 4th!

I hope everyone had a safe and healthy holiday!

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One of the things I enjoy most about holidays is that many people are off work at the same time and have a mindset of fellowship and celebration. As a young founder, I didn’t appreciate the significance of holidays and often spent the time catching up on work instead of being present. As I matured, I learned to appreciate holidays and spend them with people who matter to me.

I hope everyone who’s fortunate enough to have time off is having a great holiday weekend!

Today marks the end of my sixty-sixth week of working from home (mostly). Here are my takeaways from week sixty-six:

• Holiday – The Fourth of July is this weekend, and many people are preparing to take time off to celebrate. I enjoy holidays and can’t wait to celebrate this one.
• 2nd half – 2021 is halfway over. A lot changed in the last six months, and the time flew by. I’m looking forward to thinking about how the rest of 2021 is unfolding.  
• Disrupting routines – This week has been a major change to my routine. I’ve enjoyed it. It forced me to figure out how to accomplish what’s important to me in different ways.

Week sixty-six was a light one. I’m looking forward to the holiday weekend.

Today marks the start of the second half of 2021. I didn’t realize that 2021 is halfway over until a friend brought it to my attention today. It caught me off guard and got my wheels turning a bit. I reflected on how different from the beginning of the year—and a year ago—things are today.

I figured things would be different this year, but I didn’t anticipate this pace of change. If someone had told me in January that airlines would be canceling summer flights because they can’t find enough staff to meet the demand, I’m not sure I would have believed it. This is the same industry that, with empty flights, significantly cut capacity and received government assistance last year. But here we are today, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

My big takeaway today is that a lot can happen in a short time, and 2021 is a testament to that. I’m looking forward to what’s in store the second half of the year!