Pull to Eject

It doesn’t take a whistleblower to know that corporate narratives don’t always line up with what should be shareholder value.

The larger the company, the more directions they’re pulled, and the harder it is to stay true to the thing that made them great. Just listen to earnings calls. Frequent rationale lays the fault on outside influences.

• Not enough talent or wage growth

• Covid or pandemic hangover

• Inflation and cost of goods

• unprecedented retail theft

• or this quarters excuse du jour: war/oil/weather/AI … whatever

Where exactly does the buck stop?

If the CEO isn’t taking responsibility you can bet that employees aren’t.

Is anyone in your workplace really held accountable for their output? Are you surrounded by a whole floor of employees who can’t describe what they do in the daily elevator pitch?

You can try to fix things in your purview. But you can only push that load uphill for so long.

When will you finally realize that your own accountability is a valuable asset outside of those walls? Turn it into a product or service that only you can deliver.

Buck Stopper.

Now go launch something 🚀 

Modern Tools

In the past starting a business included needing some outside help for things that we all don’t do well. Frequently that might have included logo design, letterhead, templates for proposals or slides and the digital billboard of a web site. That friction held up many startups. Sure, you could try to get your college-age niece to design a web site, but we all know how that turns out.

Those times are over. Software as a Service (SaaS) has morphed into fantastic tools for almost every function necessary to start a business today. Not the least of which is design.

Canva - has over 120 million users worldwide and includes free templates for presentations, video, web sites, documents and everything you could possibly need.

1. Easily create professional designs, manage your brand, collaborate and review assets with anyone who is part of your team.

2. Get inspired by 100 million photos, as well as thousands of ready-to-use templates, graphics, and videos to suit your business needs.

3. Do you literally have no design sense? Hire for your gig economy project right in the Canva community.

Old School Wisdom

Since 1965 Warren Buffett has been giving his state of the company reports in annual Shareholder letters that are unlike any other corporation. His 1989 Letter to Shareholders is actually taught at top MBA schools.

Spend a little time digging through the section entitled “Mistakes of the First Twenty-five Years (A Condensed Version)” to see the unvarnished accountability of perhaps the greatest investor of all time. Count the number of times Buffett admits his mistakes and compare that to today’s typical corporate narrative. Be more like Buffet.

Free Knowledge

I listen to fewer podcasts today but I still stack them up for road trips and travel. This week’s Hidden Brain pod was suggested by longtime friend and Launch Key subscriber Bill Ault. Break through writers block or athletic plateaus or whatever is holding you back. James Clear has been a great follow every since his best seller Atomic Habits (#ad) and his simple weekly newsletter is excellent.

1. Podcast: You 2.0 - How to Break out of a Rut Psychologist Adam Alter shares his research on why we all get stuck at various points in our lives, and how to break free.

2. Newsletter: James Clear 3-2-1 Join 2,000,000 people already reading this weekly newsletter. Every Thursday get Clear’s 3 short ideas, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question for you to ponder.

Visual Crapshoot

Do you know people who should read the Launch Key? You know what to do