Discoveries #16 | Startups are a War—Here’s How to Survive

Welcome to Edition 16 of Discoveries. Each week, I share inspiration on design, product building, and what's next.

Startups are a War—Here’s How to Survive

Last week, we found out that BoomPop landed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies—#7 in software and #115 overall. It feels good, no doubt, after pouring everything into this company for past half decade.

But it also pushed me into reflection mode: what really makes a company succeed (or fail) over the long term?

Here are three truths I’ve come to believe—especially for venture-backed startups:

Founders have to stay in the weeds

There’s a romantic idea that as companies scale, founders should rise above the day-to-day and focus only on “strategy.” I don’t buy it.

The best founders I know—from late-stage private to public companies—are still deep in the details. Not because they don’t trust their teams, but because they’re uniquely equipped to connect all the dots.

Brian Chesky has famously said that when he stepped away from design minutia at Airbnb, things went sideways. It wasn’t about capability—it was about coherence. A thousand smart people can each own their slice, but only the founders can see (and shape) how it all fits together.

Hire like your life depends on it (because it does)

It doesn’t matter how much capital you’ve raised or how perfect your product-market fit is—if your team isn’t world-class, you will not win.

Sounds simple: “just hire great people.” In practice, it’s one of the hardest things about building a company. Roles change every stage. Culture fit matters as much as skills. And one wrong hire can be catastrophic.

We learned this the hard way at BoomPop. A few years ago, we hired a “rockstar” candidate who was exceptional on paper and had glowing recommendations. Within just a few months of working with this person, simple decisions took five meetings, mistrust spread, and the whole company slowed to a crawl. It felt like someone had jammed debris into our engine.

Letting that person go was painful, but overnight, the company started humming again. One hire can make, or nearly break, a company.

Radical transparency builds resilience

We’ve been through lawsuits, near-death cash moments, and investor drama that I thought only existed in movies. The instinct as a founder is to shield the team from that. But we’ve decided to do the opposite: full transparency.

And something powerful happened. Instead of fear, we got commitment. Every time we’ve shared tough news, the team’s response has been the same: “How can I help?”

Over time, that created a culture where no one feels alone in hard moments. The more you practice moving through difficulty together, the less scary the next one feels. And you attract people who thrive in “wartime” environments.

—

The truth is, companies don’t succeed by accident. They succeed because the founders stay close, the hires are relentlessly right, and the culture is built on unflinching honesty.

Product Inspiration

Daylight Computer

Looks like a very pricey Kindle… but wow, that website.

(S/O Arunima W. for the find)

What I'm Reading

Communication is The Job
Some takeaways:

• Communication is not a side task in leadership or teamwork, it is the job.
• Avoiding it or staying silent still communicates something, often in ways you do not intend.
• Effective communication means structuring messages so they work for different levels of attention, making them repeatable for people who will pass them along, and anticipating how they might be misunderstood.

Other Finds

Using AI to bend time—Notorious B.I.G. gets his Tiny Desk moment.

Have a great week,


Blake

P.S. I'm always looking for feedback. Reply and let me know what you think! (I reply to every email)

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