My buddy Bob called me today and described a project he’s working on. He’s having a hard time acquiring a key piece of it—he’s been searching, but he keeps coming up short. As he talked, I thought of another friend, Sarah, who deals with these kinds of items all the time. I got a picture of the item and sent it over to Sarah. She immediately responded with a product Bob might like and a source where he could view other similar products.

Bob didn’t have knowledge or experience in this area. He expended a ton of effort over countless hours trying to fill that gap. This slowed his execution of his project. Sarah, on the other hand, has the relevant knowledge and experience. She was able to point Bob in the right direction with minimal effort, which will hopefully get his project back on track.

This simple story was a reminder: knowledge gaps can impede execution. If not knowing something is slowing me down, I should find someone who can fill my gap so I can keep executing. Kudos to my buddy for reaching out. I couldn’t fill his gap, but I’m glad I knew someone who could.

I had an interesting conversation today with a founder who’s taking the hassle out of tasks most of us hate doing. His business is experiencing tremendous growth this year. As we talked about it, I realized he’s built a great workflow management business. He’s solving for a consumer pain point and helping the small businesses that do certain tasks for consumers run their businesses more efficiently.

After connecting small businesses with consumers, the founder realized that the business owners needed help executing the work efficiently. They’re routinely sent too few or too many jobs. Or the jobs would arrive late. As he listened to his clients’ challenges, his company built feature after feature until one day the small businesses ran everything through his company’s system. These businesses are now able to do almost double the number of jobs in a day because this system helps them execute more efficiently. The software is helping them grow their businesses.

I’m a big fan of workflow management businesses, especially those that empower small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). I think we’ll continue to see more tools that empower SMBs to grow their businesses. I can’t wait to watch the journey of this founder and his company. I think they’re on to something huge!

I went to the store to buy an appliance today. I’m not knowledgeable about appliances, and I wanted to make the purchase and get on with my day. There were a ton of options. I narrowed it down to two or three based on price and features. In the end, I picked one based on the brand name. It was a reputable brand that’s known for making quality products. I got it home and tried it out, and it worked great. I’m a happy customer and will likely buy another appliance from that brand when the need arises.

Brand is important to a company. It’s what it’s known for and how people perceive it. Establishing a brand takes time, so early start-ups usually don’t have much of one. However, founders should be thinking about their brand from day one. How do they want to be perceived by their customers? What do they want to be known for? They should try to align their actions and strategies around the brand they want to build.

I’m not a marketing-minded person. I didn’t spend much time thinking about brand in the early days of CCAW. When I did, though, I knew we wanted to be known for quality products and exceptional service. At the time, we were selling some entry-level products of inconsistent quality that were difficult to warranty through manufacturers. These products weren’t aligned with our desired brand, so we stopped selling them. Our customer service satisfaction went up and our warranty claims went down, both of which did align with our brand.

If you’re an early founder, start thinking about the brand you want early on and reinforce it through your decision-making. You’ll be much more likely to build a company and brand that others respect and admire.

One of the pivotal decisions I made at CCAW was to hire other high-level thinkers in critical areas. We hired people to lead operations, technology, and product. CCAW was bootstrapped, so we didn’t have tons of cash available to attract the caliber of talent we needed. After much thought and many discussions, I decided to offer some of them equity compensation in the form of stock options. If we achieved certain milestones, their equity compensation would vest and they would have the opportunity to own part of CCAW. This was a good way to align all our interests. We worked toward the same goals.

Equity compensation is a very powerful tool. It can help you land high-caliber talent you otherwise couldn’t afford. When I chose to offer it, I created an employee equity pool. This meant that a certain percentage of CCAW ownership was available for the company to use to compensate employees. Before that, I was the 100% owner of the company. After creating the equity pool, I owned less of the company. I was OK with that.

Founders who want to build big companies will likely need to compensate talent with equity (unless they have substantial cash with which to offer market-rate salaries). Founders who are considering the equity route should research how much equity compensation is appropriate for the stage of the company and the experience level of each candidate. Offer too little equity, and the candidate might reject your offer. Offer too much, and you may not have enough equity left to offer other critical hires.

Company equity is complicated, but it’s something founders should consider understanding sooner rather than later.  

I have a good friend looking to start a B corporation who asked for my thoughts. I’d heard of them but didn’t know much. He explained that he wants to create a company that’s profitable but also socially responsible. He wants it to make purpose and profits priorities—not put profits over everything else. I spent some time learning more about B corporations. I don’t think they’re applicable to all situations, and there are a fair number of hurdles, but I like what they’re created to do.

A few months ago, I shared my thoughts on skilled workers making purpose a priority in their employment decisions. I think this trend will continue to accelerate, and companies that put profits and purpose on an equal plane will win in the long run.

People and companies are beginning to be driven by more than financial gain. This is a great trend, and I can’t wait to see how it evolves.

Had a great chat with a founder friend today. We’ve known each other a long time and were catching up. We agreed that personal things have affected how we’ve approached entrepreneurship. We both love entrepreneurship, but at times we’ve had to scale back what we give to it when people in our personal lives have needed our support.

Founders live, eat, and breathe their company. They often have little to give in other parts of their life. When I started CCAW, I was fine with giving my all to it, and my family was too. They were supportive. They cheered me on as I worked crazy hours. But there came a time when they needed more from me. I adjusted and directed a lot of my energy away from CCAW and toward them. When their time of need passed, I refocused on CCAW.

The entrepreneurial journey isn’t traveled just by founders—their loved ones are along for the ride. If you’re considering entrepreneurship, be sure to think about the people you care about. Will they be OK with your giving so much of yourself to your new thing? And will you be there for them when they need you more than your business does?

A friend read my post yesterday and asked for my thoughts on shipping companies. At CCAW, we spent a ton of money on shipping over the years, so I learned a lot about this space. UPS and FedEx have their strengths. UPS’s roots are in ground shipping (three to five days’ transit time). FedEx’s core is express and overnight shipping. For many years, these two were the only game in town for nationwide small parcel shipping . . . and then came Amazon.  

Amazon has been building out its own logistics and delivery systems for years. It leased planes for an air network, built a large fleet of semitrucks, and partnered with independent contractors who deliver packages to customers’ doorsteps. With these, in combination with its warehouse infrastructure and logistics technology, it has built a formidable shipping operation.

I think Amazon will follow a similar playbook to build its AWS cloud computing business. Its e‑commerce business required substantial cloud computing resources to support its rapid growth. Amazon opted to build this infrastructure and invite other companies to use it too. This meant that Amazon offset some of the costs of the infrastructure with revenue from AWS customers. Fast forward to today, and AWS is one of Amazon’s most profitable business units and a growth engine.

Amazon will likely do something similar with shipping. It will offer shipping options that compete directly with UPS and FedEx. It will be able to offer lower prices because it has other revenue streams (e-commerce, digital advertising, cloud computing, etc.). The more customers it attracts, the more it will build out its offerings. When all’s said and done, its shipping operation could be bigger than UPS’s and FedEx’s.

I’m not sure when this will happen, but I’m confident that it will. And I think the competition will accelerate innovation, which we’ll all benefit from.

It was reported that the crypto exchange FTX raised $900 million dollars last month. The founding round valued the company at $18 billion. This is a massive amount of capital and a huge valuation for a two-year-old company. I decided to learn more about the company, because I’d like to understand why investors are bullish on it. I began by learning more about the CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

I found a podcast where Sam describes how the crypto market works. He clearly explains things like leverage and risk in the crypto market. One of the traits of a great founder—and Sam has it—is the ability to explain complex things in simple terms, which requires a deep understanding of the topic. Sam is sharp, and I can see why people want to back him.

I’m still learning more about FTX and its business model, but I get the impression it has a strong, visionary founder and strong founder–market fit. I’m looking forward to learning more about FTX’s business and how it earned such a large valuation is such a short time.

Early founders are usually down in the weeds of their business. Resources being limited, everyone is doing everything. The founder is usually the only person who understands how all the pieces fit together. I like to think of the company as a galley and the founder as the person who makes sure everyone rows in sync. An incredibly valuable role in the early days, but not the founder’s only role. Founders are also responsible for making sure the ship is headed in the right direction. A critical role some founders lose sight of. The rowers can be doing an amazing job, so the ship’s moving at a nice clip, but it will run aground if it’s pointed the wrong way.

Evaluating the business from a high level when you’re constantly down in the weeds is easier said than done. I struggled with it for years. Something always needs to be fixed or improved. I found it was helpful to force myself to think about the big picture by scheduling time to talk about the business with outsiders. I used an advisor and a peer group. They didn’t want to hear about the latest customer service ticket—they wanted to know what I was doing now that would help me achieve my three-year goal. Some of those conversations were the catalysts for making hires that got me out of the weeds.

If you’re an early founder deep in the weeds, ask yourself: How am I going to make sure my ship doesn’t run aground?

I listened to an investor share his life story recently. He’s made some timely investments that have done extremely well. I always enjoy hearing the stories of successful people because most contain a golden nugget (something others can learn from). Most of what you read about such people talks about their successes, but their journeys usually include massive failures. This story was no different. This investor was kicked out of college before he got his act together. My biggest takeaway was the amount of preparation that went into his success. He spent a decade refining his investment style before he realized a sizeable return. Many of his investments went to zero, but he learned from each one.

Some believe the path to success can be short. I disagree. I’ve yet to meet anyone successful who got there overnight. Years, if not decades, of hard work position people for eventual successful.

If you want to do something great, you must be committed and put in the work. There are no shortcuts in life. For those of you who aspire to be successful, settle in—it’s going to be a long ride!