refreshed-2026
The Vocabulary of Stalling: Six Phrases Founders Use to Postpone the Work
Founders who postpone the work do so using a small vocabulary of plausible-sounding phrases. The phrases sound like reasoning. They are stalling tactics. Here are the six most common ones, what they actually mean, and how to detect them in your own thinking.
The Quarterly Assumption Audit: How to Tell Which of Your Habits Are Costing You
Most ventures continue running practices that worked three years ago and no longer do. The cost of the obsolete practice is invisible because nobody is measuring it. The discipline of the quarterly assumption audit makes the invisible cost visible.
The Decision You Are Postponing Is the One That Would Save Your Venture
Every founder is currently postponing one specific decision they know needs to be made. The decision is not difficult because the answer is unclear; it is difficult because the answer is uncomfortable. The postponement is what is killing the venture.
What Your Prospects Are Actually Trying to Solve (And Why It Is Almost Never What They Asked About)
When prospects come to you with a request, the request is almost never the actual problem. The problem sits underneath it, often unspoken, sometimes unknown to the prospect themselves. The work of marketing is to surface the real problem and address it directly.
The Three Things Marketing Must Do, In the Order It Has to Do Them
Marketing has three jobs and they have to be done in sequence. Most marketing campaigns do one or two and skip the third. The skipped step is almost always urgency, and the absence of urgency is why most marketing produces interest without action.
The Founder’s Relationship Portfolio: Five Categories That Move Your Venture, and One That Doesn’t
Most networking advice tells founders to build relationships. The advice is too vague to act on. There are five categories of relationship that actually move a venture, and one that absorbs founder time without producing anything. Knowing the difference is the discipline.
The Second Loss: Why Predictable Discounts Train Your Customers to Wait
When you discount, the obvious cost is the discount itself. The hidden cost is that you have trained your customers to wait for the next one, and waiting customers do not come back at full price.
The Stuck Middle: Why Most African Ventures Disappear Into Their Own Category
Premium ventures attract customers willing to pay for excellence. Economy ventures attract customers buying on price. The middle attracts no one. Most African ventures end up stuck there, and the stuckness is what kills them.
When Founders Ask for More Leads, They Are Asking the Wrong Question
Almost every founder who comes to me for help opens with the same request: I need more leads. The request is almost always pointing at the wrong problem. The work is to find the actual one.
Stop Saying Solutions: The Vague Word That Is Costing Your Venture Customers
Solutions is the most overused word in business marketing. It is also a tell for founders who have not yet done the work of articulating what they actually do. Here is why the word is costing you customers, and what to use instead.