My name is Rob. I write about operations and startups — and how to make both work.

THE decision-making framework

Some of us have a hard time making decisions. Period. We like to analyze options until we’ve backed ourselves into a corner and all of them have expired.

The secret to scaling is stopping

I’ll never forget the day it sunk in. I was on the road doing deliveries, on a conference call with my co-founders who were also out doing deliveries when one of them said the sentence we all needed to hear.

Your Situation Room

After the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 — attributed to a lack of up-to-date information — President Kennedy ordered the creation of the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. Its sole purpose was to bring together the right people and information at the right time, mostly during a crisis, to make the most right decision available.

Pull the future forward

Adult Mayflies live for 2 days. They spend a year as larvae, burst onto the scene with the sole purpose of mating and then, 2 days later, dead.

Real VCs make decisions and move on

The all-too-common knock against venture capitalists is that they never make up their mind. They lead founders on, always asking for more proof points only to disappear or finally say no months too late.

Earn your views

I love the simplicity of this statement: Earn your views. Views can mean something different to everyone but it’s the “earn” part that hits for me.

The alignment meeting

Remember that old adage that to assume makes an ass out of you and me? That’s cute but in startups, assumptions derail initiatives and kill momentum. Nothing cute about that.

Kill the (be)cause

Most of the challenges of building a business are a direct result of ignoring the “because”.

Fighting overwhelm

Sometimes it’s not doing too little that hurts a startup. It’s doing too much at the same time.

Digging holes

For a long time I didn’t really understand what hard work is. Most young people don’t but it’s really not their fault.

Distractions.

Running a start up is full-frontal. Things come at you from everywhere.

Your mission

Business is self-serving and this is the problem.