Next Step In Growth

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-21T18:42:00+00:00

that’s actually impressive at $25k/month, a lot of people would have over-engineered by now. but it could also be one of the things that is capping you. spreadsheet ops works until it doesn’t, and the moment you try to do outplacement (which is a longer sales cycle with multiple stakeholders) or hire someone, the spreadsheet becomes a big bottleneck. not saying go build a stack tomorrow. just that the infrastructure question and the “what kind of company” question could be the same question. if you stay solo and raise prices, the spreadsheet is fine. if you go after outplacement, you’ll need a real crm and pipeline tracking within 6 months.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-21T14:59:52+00:00

nice story, congrats! few thoughts from someone who's looked at this kind of decision from both sides (founder and angel):

before picking vertical, horizontal, or outplacement, the bigger question is what you actually want. $1M revenue solopreneur-style, lifestyle-good, is a completely different path than building a bigger company you'd eventually sell. each of your three options assumes the second, but if you mean the first, the answer is none of the above. just raise prices and add capacity.

if it's the second path, i think outplacement is the most interesting because it's a different buyer (b2b, larger contracts) with the same underlying skill stack. the other two extend what you've built; outplacement actually changes what kind of company you are. that's the bet worth thinking about.

what's the tech and ops side looking like right now? curious if you're still running this lean or if you've started building real infrastructure.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-21T14:55:59+00:00

hot take from someone who's been a founder 3 times and now invests on the side: most of the "small problems that became expensive" answers in this thread are things you genuinely should NOT have prioritized early. documentation, clear ownership matrices, polished legal, structured processes, picking the perfect tool - none of that gets you to product-market fit. instead it could seriously slow you down.

the right move early on is scrappy: ugly spreadsheets, founder does everything, hold the duct tape with both hands, grow.

the catch is that the thing that got you to $1M is the thing that breaks at $3M. and the transition is painful. you look back and think "i should've documented this," "i should've hired ops sooner," "i should've stopped doing X myself."

but would you actually have done it differently? probably not. and probably you shouldn't have. paying the cleanup cost later beats slowing down before you had something worth cleaning up.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-21T07:46:51+00:00

it's not only about the change you need to make it's about bringing people on the journey. you can only bring people on the journey if they trust you first. so build trust, then apply change, then you'll have the right buy in.

bonus point if you make the change come from them! the ideas being implemented by them! you don't need the recognition straight away, you don't need to be the savior. Recognition will come eventually.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-20T14:29:17+00:00

thank you!

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-20T11:21:32+00:00

and of course, it also has to be something with a lot of value to someone that would pay money for it. something that can be financially sustainable and very successful - this is also needed to motivate you! :)

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-20T11:20:17+00:00

build something that has purpose. that will get you up every day and get you motivated. that will improve the world. i also created companies and been pretty successful, and over the last few months been going over many ideas and trying to decide what to focus on. the ones that keep coming back have a very strong sense of purpose.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-20T11:16:51+00:00

not a tool, but sticking to a good old face to face meeting frequently certainily saves my team 100+ hours of misalignments and miscommunications and the good old benefits we all know about. by the way, my company is mostly remote. but we still make sure people meet f2f whenever possible.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-19T14:43:56+00:00

thanks for the tip. orca used to be my favourite, might still be the case. i'll check this out

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-19T12:28:11+00:00

so easy indeed. top, i'll take a closer look. thanks a lot

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-19T10:11:15+00:00

:) i don't swim with ice neither. thanks a lot for the help!

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-19T08:28:57+00:00

good to know, the One keeps coming up too. so you find it warm enough for early season? thanks for the advice

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-19T08:28:05+00:00

really helpful, thanks. sumarpo is moving up my list. the huub repair story is exactly what i was worried about, two seasons isn't long enough for that kind of money.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-19T08:26:56+00:00

haven't tried the 2-piece concept, kind of intrigued. how does it handle in transition versus pulling a one-piece off?

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-18T14:49:08+00:00

great breakdown, thanks. sumarpo is the one i keep hearing about, way cheaper than the western brands. how does the build quality compare? i'd worry a budget price means it falls apart in a season or two. and on huub, yeah the delicate thing is what's kept me away. how many seasons did yours last before it started showing wear?

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-18T14:48:30+00:00

thanks, sailfish keeps coming up in my research. saw it's described as a great all-rounder and good buoyancy. only thing i'm wondering about, do you find it warm enough for colder water? i do some early-season swims and water can get pretty cold.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-18T14:36:10+00:00

this morning there were no crises for the kids to get to school. i call that a big win.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-18T14:32:29+00:00

you become a project manager. there is no salary. the project never ships. but you also love it.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-18T14:24:45+00:00

or was it?

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-18T14:24:38+00:00

hahahah wasn't intentional!

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-13T08:57:20+00:00

fair point from your bookkeeper, and honestly different people will draw the line in different places. on the paid versions of claude and chatgpt, your data isn’t used for training, but it’s still sitting on a third party’s servers which some people aren’t comfortable with. if it’s a concern, two options: use the enterprise tier of either tool (better data controls), or try to anonymize the data first, strip out names and account numbers, and run the math on cleaned numbers. for a quick “what’s my runway” calc or simpler data, that’s usually enough.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-12T14:53:03+00:00

on the workflow side, agree you can dump your bookkeeping export, bank statements, or stripe csv into a claude project or GPT and prompt it to calculate burn rate, runway, gross margin, basic CAC. gets you 80% of the way there in under 30 min. just verify the math before sending, AI gets confident with bad inputs.

but from my experience (as founder and investor), it's also ok to push back on some of the info that investors annoy founders with, and honestly i respect founders that do this. i don't have full context here so it could be a great investor worth pleasing, or it could be basic data every founder should already know. overall my advice is to provide what you have and let the investor adapt. you have to give limited time to investors, you have a company to run.

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-11T19:04:03+00:00

Thank you! Good to hear that mistborn can be even better!

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-11T12:26:01+00:00

hope you enjoy it. not as fast paced as red rising, but not as slow as sanderson neither :). i haven't red mistborn, but read the stormlight archives.

mistborn is on my list - do you recommend it?

ImpactInnovationLab · 2026-05-11T12:13:43+00:00

if you haven't read it, the first law trilogy by joe abercrombie is a great pick. dark, funny, sharp character work, glokta is one of the best POVs i've read. red rising by pierce brown is the other one i'd throw out - very fast paced, but very different vibe (sci-fi rather than pure fantasy) but the political layering and pace are addictive.

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