Practices, not labels
Founder qualities, held as practices.
These are not a model of who succeeds, and nothing here has been shown to predict a good company. Each one is a practice you can rehearse, still stated as a question.
01
Conviction with openness
What evidence would change my mind?
Camuffo and colleagues studied whether a scientific habit can be taught. The practice here is holding a view and naming the evidence that would move it. It is not a trait that predicts success.
Exercise. Write the decision, the view you hold, and one observation that would make you change it. Date both. Reread them before you sign.
Research. A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making: large-scale replication and extension
02
Persistence with a stopping rule
Am I seeing new evidence, or the cost I have already sunk?
Stopping can be care for the company. Continuing can be care as well. The practice is to write the rule before the week gets loud.
Exercise. Write the date and the fact that would make you stop this plan. Put the sentence where a cofounder can see it.
Research. A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making: large-scale replication and extension
03
Trust with independence
What do I know independently of the person who benefits if I believe them?
A register you opened, a reference you found, or a payment instruction you checked on another channel. Trust can follow that work. It is a poor substitute for it.
Exercise. List three facts about this counterparty that did not come from them. If you cannot, the next step is a check, not a signature.
Regulatory. Al Jomaih Investments Ltd impersonated in a fraudulent advance-fee scam
04
Courage under pressure
Can I decline a deal I badly want?
Scarcity is loud. The practice is to keep a no available after the room has started celebrating.
Exercise. Write the sentence you would send if you declined, and the cash plan for the month after. Read it once before the call.
Community. Startup Struggle Survey 2025
05
Confidence with calibration
Where am I most sure, and what would a smaller estimate look like?
Kraft, Günther, Kammerlander and Lampe published a 2022 meta-analysis titled “Overconfidence and entrepreneurship: A meta-analysis of different types of overconfidence in the entrepreneurial process.” The journal page blocked an automated check. A RePEc record returned the title and the citation. This page does not restate effect sizes from a paper it could not open. A separate meta-analysis of CEO overconfidence and firm performance also blocked an automated check, so it is not used. Founder studies and CEO studies are different literatures. This page does not collapse them, and it does not say that confidence raises or lowers results. The practice is to separate how sure you feel from the range you can defend.
Exercise. Write your best estimate, a lower figure you would still bet the month on, and the evidence for each. If they are the same sentence, you have not calibrated.
06
Candour with respect
What conversation are we avoiding?
Y Combinator’s public conversation on hard talks is a prompt to name the conversation, not a script. Respect is how you say it. Candour is that you say it.
Exercise. Name the person, the fact, and the sentence you will use. Say it in the next planned meeting, not in a side channel.
Practitioner. Amy Buechler and Michael Seibel on founder coaching and having hard conversations
07
Responsibility with a boundary
Which decisions actually need me, and which am I holding out of habit?
Delegation is a list, a boundary, and a way for the work to continue when you are not in the room.
Exercise. List three decisions from the last month. Mark who else could have made each one, and move one of them this week.
08
Ambition with a limit
Does this goal still fit the life we want, or only the story we have been telling?
Ordóñez, Schweitzer, Galinsky and Bazerman, Academy of Management Perspectives, February 2009, titled a paper “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting.” The journal page blocked an automated check. A University of Arizona record matched the citation. This page does not list side effects beyond the title. Lavingia writes that a billion-dollar goal had been a terrible goal. His life is not yours. The practice is to notice when the target has replaced the judgment.
Exercise. Write the goal, the behaviour it is currently rewarding, and one cost you are no longer counting. Decide whether the goal stays.
Community. Reflecting on my failure to build a billion-dollar company
Research. Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting
09
Integrity under incentives
Which part of this decision fades when the incentive is loud?
Ethics Unwrapped describes ethical fading as being so focused on other aspects of a decision that the ethical dimensions fade from view. The narration attributes the name to Ann Tenbrunsel and David Messick. Giving Voice to Values, in the series associated with Mary Gentile, treats speaking up as something you can script. Both are educational pages, not UAE rules. The practice is to notice the fade, then write the sentence you would actually say.
Exercise. Name the incentive, the duty it crowds out, and the sentence you would say to the person with less power. Rehearse it once before the meeting.
Practitioner. Ethical fading
Practitioner. Giving Voice to Values
10
Care with capacity
Who is carrying the cost of our pace?
Gascoigne’s account of burnout is one founder’s. The practice is to name who, besides you, is paying for the speed, and to drop something before you add something.
Exercise. Ask one person what they dropped last month because of the company’s pace. Write what you will drop before the next promise.