Introducing Deliberate Work
There are two ways to run a business. One depends on heroics. The other depends on design. This is the difference between accidental and deliberate—and why it matters more than almost anything else.
Read the postOrigins: The Two Lineages Behind Deliberate Work
Two intellectual traditions independently discovered how to transform ordinary performance into extraordinary results. One studied people. The other studied processes. For over a century, they never talked to each other. Deliberate Work is their convergence.
Read the full storyFoundations
Core concepts for thinking about work deliberately.
How to Start a Business Deliberately
Most businesses don't fail because of a bad idea. They fail because of a bad operating system—one that was never designed in the first place.
10 min read →Do Things That Don't Scale—But Do Them Deliberately
Paul Graham's famous advice was right. But it was incomplete. The winners weren't just doing unscalable things—they were systematizing as they went.
10 min read →The Fire That Won't Stay Out
You didn't start this business to become a full-time firefighter. Here's why the fires keep coming back—and what it actually takes to stop them for good.
12 min read →Thinking of Work at Scale
The secret to designing work that actually runs isn't starting with the details. It's knowing which level of abstraction to work at.
15 min read →The AI Opportunity Most Business Owners Are Missing
AI is changing how work gets done—that's real. But the risk isn't AI itself. It's letting fear or confusion keep you from learning where it fits.
14 min read →The Transition from Accidental Hell to Deliberate Happiness
There's a version of running a business that feels like slow drowning. And there's a version that feels like finally being able to breathe.
14 min read →How to Become a Deliberate Business Owner or Operator
The transformation from reactive operator to deliberate leader isn't about working harder. It's about changing what you pay attention to.
12 min read →Cowboys and Surgeons: A Field Guide to Your Team's Hidden Talents
Your team is full of generalists and specialists—and if you're lucky, a rare polymath. Here's how to spot them, deploy them, and let them be great.
12 min read →The Craftsperson vs. Business Person Paradox
The very identity that gave you the credibility to start a business becomes the single biggest barrier to building one. Here's why—and how to cross the void.
10 min read →Frameworks
Diagnostic tools and mental models for understanding where your business creates value, where it breaks down, and where to focus next.
Where Your Customer Experience Breaks (And How to Fix It)
Your business is leaking value—you just can't see where. A stage-by-stage diagnostic using the AAAERRR framework to find exactly where your customer experience breaks.
14 min read →Giving Your Business Air
Most owners and operators know something is wrong but can't name it. AAAERRR's dual lens—value stream and customer experience—gives you the diagnostic language to find it.
12 min read →The 7 Stages Every Customer Goes Through—That Most Businesses Can't Name
Your customers move through the same stages every time. But if you can't name them, you can't manage them.
10 min read →How to Design Recurring Revenue That Actually Recurs
Most subscription businesses obsess over acquisition and wonder why customers churn. The secret is designing what happens after the sale.
12 min read →Game Theory and the Two Kinds of Business
Why "recurring vs. non-recurring" is the wrong distinction—and how game theory explains what actually changes.
12 min read →Case Studies
Deep dives into how the world's best companies designed their work to flow. Not surface-level case studies—real analysis of the systems that made excellence inevitable.
Henry Ford: The Assembly Line That Changed Everything
How one stubborn question—"Why does the work stand still?"—revolutionized manufacturing.
12 min read →McDonald's: The Original Operating System
How the Speedee Service System turned a hamburger stand into the world's most replicable business.
14 min read →IKEA: Flat-Pack Flow (Part 1)
How a table that wouldn't fit in a car became the foundation of a global logistics revolution.
11 min read →IKEA: The Self-Serve Store (Part 2)
How a warehouse fire accidentally invented modern retail flow.
12 min read →LEGO: The Atomic Unit of Play
How standardized bricks, modular design, and deterministic manufacturing built a toy empire that outsells digital.
14 min read →Bridgewater: The Principles Machine
How radical transparency, believability-weighted voting, and systematized disagreement built the largest hedge fund in history.
18 min read →Erewhon: The Curation Economy
How a struggling health food store became a $1 million-per-week retail phenomenon by designing trust into every shelf.
15 min read →Coming Soon
Shopify: The Merchant's Operating System
How Shopify designed flows that let anyone run an online store—and what they orchestrated away from merchants.
HubSpot: Inbound as a System
How HubSpot turned a marketing methodology into a product category—and the flywheel that powers both.
Porsche: Precision at Scale
How obsessive craft meets manufacturing flow. The handoff between human judgment and systematic quality.
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