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You're optimising for all the wrong things. And no one will tell you until it's too late!
Last month, I watched a founder lose a £400k contract. Not because his product was bad (it was excellent), not because he was underbid (his pricing was competitive).
He lost it because he said to the client he would send a follow-up email "at the end of the week" and then did not. For eleven days after he eventually sent it, the client had already signed with another supplier.
“But I was busy scaling! I had investor meetings! The team needed-"
Your client did not care about your excuses. Your client cared that your word meant absolutely nothing. That is what I am talking about. The basics that you think do not matter until they cost you everything.
Being a good founder is not about having the best ideas. Ideas are abundant. Everyone has them. It is about being someone that people can work with when things get messy. And things will always get messy.
The Skill That You Are Ignoring
Do you have the ability to read a room? Not vaguely as emotional intelligence, specifically: can you identify whether your team says "yes" when they really mean "this is an awful idea, and I am terrified to tell you"? Because if you cannot, you are making decisions off of un-reality.
I have personally witnessed founders continue down strategies that their entire team knows are destined to fail. Not because the team is stupid, but because the founder could not tell the difference between true agreement and fearful compliance.
Are you getting a nod from your team? Are they truly agreeing with you or are they simply waiting for you to finish speaking? Completely different question, critical difference.
Or This One
A founder friend of mine, a very bright person, continued to hire the wrong people. Again and again. The same pattern each time: wonderful interview, excellent first month, disaster by month three. Finally, he asked me, "What is going on in these interviews?"
It turned out he was hiring people who would make him feel intelligent, People that would agree with him and never disagree, Would validate his thoughts and ideas. He was maximising ego validation instead of actual competence. Once he realised it? Began to bring another person into the interviews to specifically challenge the candidates. Hired completely different people. Retention increased from 40% to 85%.
The Thing That Appears Obvious But Is Not
Follow through. Do what you say you will do. However, here is something that is quite astonishing; most people do not. Even when they intend to.
"I'll send you that proposal by Tuesday." Does not send it until Thursday, or the next Tuesday, or completely forgets to send it,
"Let me think about this and I will get back to you." Never gets back to them, "I will investigate that problem." Does not investigate it. Hopes that everyone will forget, each failed commitment is minor and forgettable, even. But they add up.
At some point, your clients, your team, your investors will stop believing anything you say. Not in a dramatic fashion. Just... quietly, he contracts go to another provider. The top performers leave. The funding becomes harder to come by. And you will be unable to understand why because no one will tell you "we left because your word means nothing".
I'm not concerned about how smart your strategy is, if you're aware of the moment before you make a decision you will regret, if your employees are motivated, if they feel secure telling you when you are wrong, and if you are hustling enough.
Do your employees believe the promises you are making to them as you hustle? I understand that this does not lend itself well to creating clickbait for LinkedIn, but after ten years:
Your customers/employees will remember whether they trusted you or felt exhausted from working with you.
That is built into every single one of those thousands of little moments you probably don't even think about.
So here is my real advice: Stop optimising for impressive, start optimising for reliable; Know your patterns, know when you make poor decisions, build systems around your weakness rather than ignoring it (like most do), do what you say you will do when you say you will do it. Every. Single. Time.
Pay attention to people, really listen to them, remember what they tell you. Is that boring? Yes.
It is boring and boring is what remains standing long after the exciting founders have burned out, burned bridges, and left their current venture for their next.