What happens when growth slows and leaders are forced to make decisions they hoped they could avoid?

In this episode, Mark Abbott reflects on the hard lessons of 2025, a year that forced difficult decisions, exposed cultural misalignment, and pushed leadership maturity to the forefront. From navigating high care versus high performance to making one-way door decisions under pressure, this conversation breaks down what founders must confront when uncertainty reveals what is really happening inside the company.

You’ll hear:

-Why ambiguity strains teams more than most founders expect
-What “succeed or escalate” looks like in real leadership moments
-Why accountability, ownership, and meeting size matter more as you scale

Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every other week.

Connect:

→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott

→ Follow Cole on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ColeAbbott

Resources:
→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXT

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

What does it take to build a brand that actually scales?

In this episode, Mark Abbott talks with Jed Morley, founder of Backstory Branding and author of Building a Brand That Scales. They dive deep into the role founders play in shaping brand and culture, and why alignment across both is non-negotiable if you want to build something that lasts.

Jed shares how Nike first sparked his obsession with branding, why most founders delay the hard brand work for too long, and how he helps companies turn insight into real, compounding impact.

You’ll hear:

• Why a brand is not your logo and what it actually is
• How founder alignment drives both culture and brand
• The questions leaders must answer to attract like-minded talent

Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every week.

Connect:
→ Follow Jed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jedmorley/
→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott

Resources:
 → Learn more about Backstory Branding: https://www.backstorybranding.com/
→ Read Building a Brand That Scales: https://www.backstorybranding.com/books/building-a-brand-that-scales
→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXT 

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

What does it take to turn a five-acre crop into a national brand?

In this episode, Mark Abbott talks with Jessie and Adrian Capote of J&C Tropicals, a third-generation family business built on their father’s vision and grit. They open up about the near-collapse that nearly ended it all, the decisions that turned things around, and how they’ve evolved from surviving to leading with clarity, culture, and structure.

You’ll hear:

• How their father’s hustle created a produce legacy
• What it took to rebuild after hitting rock bottom
• How generational leadership keeps the company strong

Subscribe for more founder-first conversations every week.

Connect:

→ Follow Jessie on LinkedIn: : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessiecapote/
→Follow Adrian on LinkedIn: : https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriancapote/

→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott

Subscribe for more founder-first insight every week.

Resources:
→ Learn more about J&C Tropicals: https://www.jctropicals.us/
→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXT 

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Founders can delegate a lot, but not everything.

Mark Abbott sits down with Audra Stanton, Head of Product at Ninety, for a candid conversation about the work founders must own. From team drift to cultural misalignment, they explore how leadership shows up in the hard moments.

In this episode:

• Why escalation is a leadership signal, not a handoff
• What happens when people avoid friction instead of facing it
• How to model alignment without micromanaging

Connect:
→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott
→ Follow Audra on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4qHhhyC

Subscribe for more founder-first insight every week.

Resources:
→ Subscribe to Mark’s Founder’s Framework Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3JiAaXT 

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

AI isn’t just changing how we work, it’s reshaping what it means to work. In this episode, Mark and Cole explore how AI is impacting small and mid-sized businesses, leadership, and culture.
They discuss:

• How AI is organically transforming teams and tools inside Ninety
• Why some organizations embrace AI while others resist it
• The role of employee archetypes in understanding how people adopt new tech
• The ethical and human implications of automation and job shifts
• How leaders can guide their teams through massive technological change

Whether you’re a founder, team leader, or simply curious about the future of work, this conversation will challenge how you think about technology, culture, and leadership.

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Emotional intelligence is not learned in a seminar. It is trained like a muscle.

In this Founder’s Framework Podcast episode, Mark Abbott talks with Theran Knighton-Fitt, Co-Founder of MyGrow, about what they call the “EQ Gym,” a practical way for people to grow emotional intelligence inside companies.
The conversation covers:

• Why most leadership training fails to create lasting change
• The difference between fixing systems and empowering people
• How emotional intelligence shapes culture and performance
• MyGrow’s ten-year founder journey and the lessons along the way

For founders trying to scale culture while building systems, this conversation shows why emotional fitness is just as critical as operational efficiency.

Learn more about MyGrow: https://mygrow.me
Connect with Theran on LinkedIn: https://za.linkedin.com/in/theranknighton-fitt

Subscribe for more founder-first conversations.

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Everyone talks about freedom as the ultimate goal of entrepreneurship, but for most founders, it’s not that simple.
In this episode of the Founder’s Framework podcast, Mark Abbott sits down with serial entrepreneur and bestselling author Bob Glazer to unpack the real truth about freedom in the founder’s journey.
They explore:

• Why most founders feel less free after starting a business
• The mental shifts required to escape the trap of “building yourself a job”
• How to delegate, build trust, and scale without burning out
• What true freedom looks like and how to design your business to support it

If you’re a founder wrestling with how to get out of the weeds and back to your vision, this conversation is for you.

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Building an AI assistant sounds like the obvious next move in today’s market—but most tools miss the mark. In this episode of the Founder’s Framework podcast, Mark Abbott talks with Ninety’s Head of AI Products, TJ Kneale, about what it really took to build Maz, Ninety’s AI assistant designed to help teams run better.

You’ll learn:
→ The internal problem that sparked the idea for Maz
→ Why Ninety chose to build a purpose-built AI tool from scratch
→ What founders should consider before integrating AI into their product

This episode is full of lessons for founders building AI tools—or thinking about it.

Connect:
→ Follow Mark on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/MarkAbbott
→ Follow TJ on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/tjkneale

→ Try Maz inside Ninety: https://www.ninety.io
→ Subscribe for more conversations on building great companies.

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

It’s one thing to start a business. It’s another to intentionally design a company that can grow and evolve beyond your daily effort.

In this episode, Ninety Founder & CEO Mark Abbott sits down with Michael E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth, to explore what it really means to build a company. They break down the trap of doing the work, the power of the Dreaming Room, and the eight personas every entrepreneur must grow through to build something that lasts.

You’ll learn:
→ Why the founder’s role is to design the business, not just do the work
→ How the 8 personas of entrepreneurship shape your evolution
→ Why clarity of vision matters more than systems alone

Resources:
→ Learn more about the Dreaming Room
→ Read The E-Myth Revisited
→ Connect with Michael on LinkedIn
→ Subscribe to the Founder’s Framework Newsletter
→ Try Ninety free for 30 days

Try Ninety free for 30 days!

Building a mobile app sounds like a natural step for product-led startups, but it’s not always the right move. In this episode of the Founder’s Framework podcast, Mark Abbott talks with Ninety’s Head of Product, Kyle Phillips, about what it really takes to build and maintain a mobile app.

You’ll learn:

• Why timing matters more than ambition when launching a mobile experience
• The surprising tradeoffs startups face between web and native apps
• Lessons learned from building Ninety’s own iOS and Android apps

This candid conversation is packed with insights for any founder or product leader thinking about investing in mobile.

Try Ninety free for 30 days!