If you understand how the world works, you can let it do some serious heavy lifting for your business. If you ignore how it works, your business is as good as dead. Today we talk through three universal truths - forces that you can put behind your business to dramatically accelerate it. We'll use three examples - the best marketing campaign Brian's ever seen, the most magical product, and the mind-blowing growth of pickleball. 

• Maria Maria 🎶
• Tacklebox 🎣

We spend a bunch of time on business fundamentals. These are important, obviously, but they're only relevant if you can build enough trust with customers to convince them to give you a chance in the first place.

Today we'll talk about why people hand their keys over to random strangers on the street in New York City, how a person selling cures for baldness converts 80% of the people he speaks with, and how you can build a strategy to cultivate trust with your customers, too.

•  Tacklebox

Today, we'll start a business in 20(ish) minutes. We'll talk through the idea, figure out assumptions, run a test, and make a decision. We leverage a three step process to figure out if the idea is worth our time: Whisper Ideas vs. Rooftop Ideas, Rivers and Dams, and a Hypothesis Test. 

• Tacklebox

I meet far too many unhappy entrepreneurs. The whole point of this thing is to build a business that makes you happy. It needs to work, but it also can't make you miserable. Lots of entrepreneurs set themselves on a bad path from day one by ignoring critical early decisions. We talk through them today. And if you're not happy building what you're building, it's not too late. 

• Tacklebox

Today we'll help you sink your teeth into value. We'll help you understand what people will actually pay for, talk through a framework to ensure you're creating enough value to anchor a business, and look at examples of a few startups doing this well and poorly. There's also a magician. 

• Make $1,000 Today
• Tacklebox

This episode digs into how to reduce complexity and choose the right path through a mental model we call the river. You identify the dams that stop your customer and break them down, focusing on just them to bring focused, explainable, shareable value. Plus, the papaya. Which you'll have to listen to understand. 

• Tacklebox
• The River (Bruce Springsteen)

We've spent a ton of time recently on tactics and strategies. Today, we talk about how to build a group to make sure you're implementing them. Here's how to build a 4 person startup accountability group that'll meet weekly. We talk through who should be in the group, what you should focus on, and why it'll help. There's absolutely no better way to get started. 

• Tacklebox

Today we reflect on the three core characteristics our fastest growing startups shared. We break each down and talk through how to check for them and optimize for them. We also realize that startup ideas without these characteristics aren't worth your time to build. 

• Tacklebox
• Byldd
• Kunal Shah on The Knowledge Project

Today we think through an idea for an app that treats chronic pain. We'll use the Three Level system to figure out what we know, what we need to learn, and whether the business has enough potential for us to spend our time filling in the gaps. 

And, if you're a freelance designer, podcast producer, or in video production, and you're interested in working on and growing ITS, contact [email protected]. 

• Tacklebox
• Miro

Today we'll talk about how early-stage entrepreneurs can get themselves unstuck. It's easy to get paralyzed when the things you do don't lead to the outcomes you want. The key is understanding that in the startup world, results and decisions don't always go hand in hand. Separating them and focusing on stacking good decisions while understanding that the results might be a lagging indicator is your best bet. That's hard to do. Today, we talk through it. 

• Tacklebox
• Alex Honnold Video