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Start here
How to build a company, properly.
Eight steps, in the order they usually matter. Each one opens a full page: the how, the common mistakes, and the signs you’re ready to move on.
The playbook
Eight steps.
Not a formula. Every good company breaks some of these rules. The best founders know which ones, and why.
- 01Read the step →
Start with yourself
Before the idea comes the founder. Know why you are doing this, what you are good at, and what you can sustain for a decade.
- 02Read the step →
Find a problem worth solving
Fall in love with a painful, frequent, expensive problem, not with your solution. Talk to the people who have it.
- 03Read the step →
Validate before you build
Test demand with the cheapest experiment you can: a landing page, a pre-sale, a manual service. Let customers pay before you write code.
- 04Read the step →
Build the smallest thing that works
Ship the narrowest product that delivers the core outcome, measure it, and improve it weekly. Use AI so a small team works like a large one.
- 05Read the step →
Win your first customers
Do things that don’t scale: founder-led sales, a sharp message, one channel you master. Then automate what works.
- 06Read the step →
Build the team
Hire slowly for values and quickly for gaps. Design a remote-first operating system from day one, and write things down.
- 07Read the step →
Raise the right capital
Decide whether to raise, how much, and from whom. The right investors add more than money. The wrong ones cost more than it.
- 08Read the step →
Scale the operating system
Install rhythm, ownership and metrics so the company runs without the founder in every room, and lead the team through the changes growth brings.
Keep the founder whole
The company runs on you.
None of these steps survive a founder who burns out. Sleep, movement, relationships and a clear why are part of the playbook.
Work with the studio
Building something worth growing?
Tell us what you’re building and what you need. We read every application, and every founder gets an answer.