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.
Read the postFoundations
Core concepts and frameworks for thinking about work deliberately. Start here if you're new to the methodology.
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 →The Admiral's Framework: AAERRR
AARRR was for deck hands. AAERRR is for admirals. How adding one letter transforms a growth-hacking tool into a vocabulary for describing work.
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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