Aaron Vidas

Safe AI for more customers, profits + time

I’m an AI + ML entrepreneur who’s spent 15+ years founding and scaling 4 big data, strategy, and AI companies; including a VC-backed global data platform. In 2024 my Life split in two: one week I was marathon training; the next I was told “Prepare not to see the end of the month” because of a brain tumour.

What followed was a chain of miracles, a full recovery and level of clarity that changed how I lead.

Today, I helm DASS Services, the world’s fastest-growing AI consultancy. And DASS Group an AI-enabled holding company acquiring extraordinary businesses across the world.

I build companies that create outsized impact, and a lot of joy, along the way.

HOW I HELP

I work with luxury travel groups, building-supply companies, wellness brands, and professional service firms generating $5M–$2B+ in annual revenue to:

• Unlock their first “AI Win” in 90 days so they build belief in AI's actual capabilities 
• Help Founders, Boards, and CxO’s deploy capital, hire, lead, and succeed in the AI Age
• Build enduring companies whose value grows exponentially as ai-enabled systems take over
• Acquire exceptional businesses and elevate them through AI, process intelligence and elevated consciousness

If you want clarity, speed, and ROI in this new era, happy to talk.

WHAT I SHARE HERE

• The AI playbooks behind our average 787% ROI in 1–8 months on AI projects
• What’s real vs. hype in the AI Age
• How-to lead confidently while the world shifts beneath our feet
• How-to build extraordinary companies while staying vibrantly, fiercely alive through the highs and lows of Life

YOUR NEXT STEPS

Want your first AI Win in the next 90 days?

Grab the 90-Day AI Win Playbooks for your industry below and see how companies are unlocking profit, time, and joy through AI-enabled systems.

Then take a visit to dass-services.com 

Want an AI Workshop for your Board or C-suite?
Want me to speak at your event?
Want to explore a partnership or acquisition?

Visit aaronvidas.com

Founder

I'm a non-technical CEO. I just accidentally shipped a whole SaaS app in six hours.

I don't code, but my frustrated friend needed help tracking job openings at companies he cared about so he can apply. "I just want an email of the job description when they post something." 

The team at DASS Services NA told me to revisit Loveable as it's come along way (six months ago I had tried building with and hit rate limits and got frustrated). 

I booted up Loveable to see what I could do and built a working job monitoring app in six hours.

It tracks company job boards. Has roles based controls and a dynamic parser. Emails you when they post roles matching your criteria.

The obstacles were real: tight security requirements, my enterprise expectations for UX/UI, pushing to see what Loveable actually can't do.

What surprised me: just me talking to AI and watching it build in real time. It was super fun. 

Ideas to working product in real time with enterprise-grade security and controls (if you prompt it well). 

If you're hunting for a job at a company you love sign up at: 

https://lnkd.in/gagsYD3W

(Limited to 75 users to keep costs low)

The lesson? Six months ago, $10K's of people's time and overhead to build a simple app. Today, six hours for a non-technical CEO.

The tools evolved past the frustrating phase.

If you've been waiting to experiment, stop waiting and build what you want.

#ai #startup #saas #jobsearch #yvrjobs #singaporejobs

Thank you Mark Carney for saying the quiet part loud at World Economic Forum today.

The ways things have “always” been – from how countries talk to each other to our relationship to work – for the past ~80 years is going away.

That’s not a bad thing, because acknowledgement is the first step in any real growth.

As Prime Minister Carney points out any system's power comes “not from truth, but continues from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing…the illusion begins to crack.”

For example, in the Communist countries shopkeepers were required to put a “Workers of the World Unite” sign in their window. Even though neither the customer, nor shopkeeper, believed in the sign. The system stopped, and something better came along, when people stopped performing and putting up their signs.

The same goes for the time we find ourselves in. We choose to cling to performances and permitting institutions (and their leaders) to act in ways we know aren’t right. Thinking it will allow us to ‘keep on, keeping on.’

What we forget is at no other time in history have individuals had so much power. There’s more ways to learn, make money, communicate and travel than ever before. Since 1980 the world’s population has roughly doubled and poverty has gone down 80%.

That’s only upleveled now with generative AI were people who can’t code now have the ability to create products , companies and communities just by talking to their computers. Last week I made software that cost me ~$160K previously in 6 hours for $120 (and I don’t code).

That changes the calculus that leaders – in finance to government raised before the internet, smartphone existed – haven’t cottoned onto.

We can address situations of complexity, with speed and accuracy, for pennies in resources we couldn’t even 3 years ago. 

In business imagine products customizing to what an individual customer finds valuable so there's sustainable pricing power. Highly compensated people only doing what they’re naturally gifted at because AI is taking care of the 'boring and tedious.' Not sitting pretending to work on some spreadsheet because the boss is still there. Government Leaders able to ask ‘what-if’ questions about resource allocation of B’s and receive grounded answers in seconds so institutions can serve their communities incredibly well.  

That’s not just efficiency gains, that’s an entirely more vibrant way of living for all of us. However, it does mean we’ll have to act differently. Growing and holding entirely different behaviours and values as important.

And that all starts with acknowledging the performances, the antics, we're watching today don’t actually resonate anymore.

#leadership #ai #WEF

I take sales calls from creek beds so I can maximize flow, not valuation or profit, for DASS Services NA. 

In building 1K’s of ai-enabled workflows over the past year one thing has become clear to me: the best results come from completely re-doing how “the work” is done. Time, speed to reach desired outcomes relative to investment have collapsed with ai-enabled workflows. 

But ‘seeing’ how that can happen only occurs when your body, and brain, are in the right state of flow. When your ‘fight or flight’ response has shut off and you’re open to playing with new ideas. You don’t get there hunched over a screen. 

You get there being in nature, resting and exposing yourself to
new music, art and information. Literally moving differently, trying new dance moves, foods and neighbourhoods. 

Then the solutions come ‘out of the blue’ because the body and brain are relaxed, putting things together in the background. 

So we’ve built systems, and processes, to ensure the whole team can get outside, get exploring and get exposed to new stimuli. While still capturing the ideas and solutions that come to them (@wisprflow is a great place to start).  

If you’re running an AI Team, or are a CEO, get your AI people out the door and into the quiet. Challenge them to seek out new movies, music and places. I can guarantee they’ll come back with solutions of using AI in your business that’ll be really original, really resonate and really work. 

#ai #leadership #privateequity

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Forward deployed engineers: are you watching your projects get shelved by fear-based boards?

Better AI roles exist. You're just not seeing them.

My frustrated friend is stuck at a company where the CxO's, and Board, don't get AI. He said: "I just want an email when a role I'm a fit for at a company I love is posted."

So I accidentally built him a job monitoring app, now I'm giving it to you.

Here's the pain he was facing (maybe you are too):

You're building cutting-edge AI implementations. Then watching them get stalled by C-suites that don't understand you're on the edge of something entirely new.

Meanwhile, there's a company down the street that actually experiments. That's willing to try things that might fail but also might work really well. Where your skills would matter.

You just don't know they posted till it's too late.

Demand for your skills grows by the day. There's no reason to stay where you are.

The app tracks companies you care about. Emails you when they post matching roles.

No more manual checking. No more missed opportunities.

Stop missing opportunities at companies that get it. It's free.

Sign up today: https://lnkd.in/gagsYD3W

#aijobs #forwarddeployedengineer #ai #machinelearning #yvrjobs #singaporejobs

AI project managers: are you plateauing at your current company? Better AI roles exist. You're just not seeing them.

My frustrated friend is stuck at a company that doesn't get it. He said: "I just want an email of a role I'm a fit for at a company I love is posted."

So I accidentally built him a job monitoring app, now I'm giving it to you.

Here's the pain he was facing (maybe you are too):

Your wasting your governance frameworks, and translation skills, teaching basics on repeat while your growth plateaus where you are.

Meanwhile, there's a company down the street that you know 'gets' AI. Where you could advance to Director in 12-24 months. Where your talent would actually matter.

You just don't know they posted a job till it's too late.

The app tracks companies you care about. Emails you when they post matching roles.

No more manual checking. No more missed opportunities.

Stop missing opportunities at companies that get it. It's free. 

Sign up today: https://lnkd.in/gagsYD3W

#yvrjobs #aijobs #singapore #ai #venturecapital #privateequity #singaporejobs

Between interviews for new hires at DASS Services NA I came upon this book. Unfortunately the author misunderstands how AI, as a technology, functionally works. Influencing his conclusions about how it relates to our experience of the world and what it can do for humanity. 

Really, it’s the greatest augmentor, or lever, we’ve ever had to amplify creativity, joy and economic sovereignty for everyone. The trick is first choosing to see the world as working for You, not against you. 

If you have questions on if AI can ‘think’ and have consciousness; or how ‘superintelligence’ sits beside us to help, versus hinder us shoot me a comment. 

#ai #vc #leadership #higherconsciousness

We’re already preparing for a time where scarcity is not the dominate ‘way of thinking’ people perceive the world. 

Check out this very, very cool job at Google exploring the economics, and structures, of a world where computers are handing the boring and tedious of so much of our current lives so we can focus on the higher value stuff. 

This one is for my #LSE, #Stanford and #Columbia econ baddies. 

Chicago supply-side people, stay out of this one. ;)

#aijobs #ai #leadership

Venture Partnerships at Google | Angel Investor

Google is hiring a Chief AGI Economist 💫

It's time to prepare for a world with abundant intelligence. 

Here's the job description:

--
As a Chief AGI Economist at Google DeepMind (GDM), you will be at the forefront of understanding the profound economic transformations that will accompany the arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). 

You will lead a new area of research, exploring post-AGI economics, the future of scarcity, and the distribution of power and resources in a world fundamentally reshaped by advanced AI. 
--

Interested?

Here's the link to apply: https://lnkd.in/dSN8QZg4

Helping Founders Break the $10M Ceiling | Strategy, Cash Flow & Leadership Systems | Scaling CFO

I help founders simplify scaling.

You started your business. You pushed past $1M. Now you're stuck somewhere between $3M and $10M, working harder than ever but not moving faster.

The problem isn't effort. It's complexity.

Too many priorities competing for attention. Financials that don't tell you what to do next. A team that still needs you for everything. Growth that feels like grinding instead of building.
I fix that.

I'm Cruz Gamboa, founder of Ascend Growth Ventures. I combine Scaling Up methodology with CFO-level financial clarity to help founders cut through the noise and scale with confidence.

Before this, I spent 25 years in corporate finance - including Regional CFO at GE and strategic finance leadership at GE Capital. I've seen what works at scale. Now I bring that to founders building something that matters.

I work best with CEOs in professional services, coaching, SaaS, and service-based businesses who are ready to scale profitably without burning out.

One conversation can change your trajectory: calendly.com/cruzagamboa/call-with-cruz-ascend-30min

Cruz Gamboa

Scaling isn’t about being nice.
It’s about being clean.

Clean with roles.
Clean with standards.
Clean with truth.

You don’t fire people.
You outgrow misalignment.

As the Netflix CEO puts it:

“If I wouldn’t fight to keep you, I owe you honesty—and a generous exit.”

Not because someone failed.
But because one of three things is true:
•	The role evolved faster than the person
•	The seat was wrong from the start
•	The bar moved—and the company didn’t move it back

High-performing companies don’t drag this out.
They decide early and act with dignity.

No drama.
No ego.
No moral stories.

Just:
•	Radical clarity
•	Respectful exits
•	Fair severance
•	Clean energy left behind

Dragging misalignment is the real cruelty.
Clarity is the kindness.

Scaling isn’t loyalty to individuals.
It’s loyalty to the mission, the team, and the future.

Right people.
Right seats.
Right standards.

And when someone no longer fits?
You don’t shame them.
You set them free.

If you want to scale, stop managing discomfort.
Start architecting teams.

Managers hesitate.
Leaders make room.

#scalingup #founders #growth #ceo

Most businesses don’t fail because they’re bad.

They fail because they’re trying to be someone else.

Burger King copied McDonald’s for 30 years.
Same audience.
Same positioning.
Same “family-friendly” nonsense.

And they kept losing.

Because you can’t beat the market leader
by playing their game better than them.

By 2004, Burger King was dying.
So they asked the only question that actually matters:

“Who is already buying from us?”

Not who they *wanted*.
Not who looked good in presentations.

The truth.

The answer?
Men aged 18–34.
Heavy fast-food users.
People who came back again and again.

And those customers didn’t want:

➡️ Safe
➡️ Cute
➡️ Corporate

They wanted:

➡️ Flame-grilled food
➡️ Control
➡️ Edge
➡️ Personality

So Burger King stopped pretending.

They brought back “Have It Your Way.”
Not as a slogan.
As a strategy.

They built everything around that one customer.

Marketing got bold.
Messaging got raw.
Campaigns got polarizing.

Subservient Chicken.
Whopper Freakout.

Not for everyone.
Exactly the point.

What happened next?

Same-store sales jumped.
Franchises grew.
And net income increased 2860% in three years.

That’s not a pivot.
That’s a resurrection.

Burger King didn’t beat McDonald’s.

They sidestepped them.

McDonald’s owned families.
Burger King owned young men who wanted control.

Different customer.
Different lane.
No direct competition.

Here’s the real lesson:

If you try to serve everyone,
you get ignored by everyone.

The fastest way to grow isn’t copying the leader.

It’s finding the customer they don’t care about
and building obsessively for them.

Specific beats broad.
Always.

#ceo #founder #growth

Most businesses don’t fail from lack of effort.

They fail from listening to themselves instead of the market.

Dunkin didn’t pivot loudly.

They pivoted quietly by watching what people kept paying for. 

Then they let the data rewrite their identity.

That’s the real upgrade:
✅ Feelings → Facts
✅ Ego → Evidence
✅ deas → Income that repeats

The market is always talking.

Your sales are the language.

So here’s the uncomfortable check:
What do people come back for again and again?

And are you building more of that… or still pitching what you’re emotionally attached to?
#scalingup #CEO #founder #growth

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cruzgamboadrive

patagonia-solar-llc

Your First Product Is Not Your Last

The first $5M? Brutal.
The next $5M? Still hard.
After $10M? Growth accelerates.

Here’s the scaling truth Kevin O’Leary calls out:

The first $5M is about survival. You’re learning how to deploy capital, take smart risks, and build systems that work. 

Most entrepreneurs quit here.

The next $5M? 

Execution matters. You’ve survived the grind, learned what works, and can now scale with confidence. Decisions compound. Efficiency improves. Strategy becomes your edge.

Beyond $10M? You’re playing a different game. Capital works for you, not the other way around. Systems, processes, and disciplined execution create leverage.

Lesson: 

Wealth and business scales the same way. 

Master the first phase. 
Build discipline. 
Then scale.
#scalingup #founder #growth #ceo

Bill Gates could have flown First Class every day or flown on his own plane, even as a billionaire, 

But he chose to fly Economy until around 1997.

Why?

Because it wasn’t worth the money.

Same plane.
Same arrival time.
5× the cost for a tiny upgrade.

That’s how smart people think about scale.

Most people make money and immediately upgrade their lifestyle.

Smart operators upgrade what makes money.

More spending doesn’t equal more growth.
It usually equals more noise.

When you’re scaling, ask one question:
👉 Does this change the outcome?

If it doesn’t:
Cut it.

A fancy office doesn’t increase revenue.
A luxury car doesn’t improve execution.
Premium tools don’t fix broken systems.

Wealth has one real job:
Buy back your time.

Once you have enough, the goal isn’t more stuff.
It’s fewer constraints.

Less distraction.
More focus.
More leverage.

Scale isn’t about looking successful.
It’s about building something that works without you.

That’s real wealth.
#scalingup #ceo #growth #founder

He was 78 years old
…when he launched a vodka brand
…with no distillery
…in an industry that laughed at him

Sidney Frank.
The man behind Grey Goose.

No product breakthrough.
No secret formula.
No startup hype.

Just one insight most people missed:
People don’t buy vodka. They buy status.

Sidney didn’t make better vodka.
He made a better story.

France on the label.
Luxury in the bottle design.
A price so high it forced belief.

While others chased volume,
he chased perception.

He didn’t market to the masses.
He placed Grey Goose in elite bars first.
When bartenders poured it,
the world followed.

He moved slowly.
Protected exclusivity.
Ignored trends.

8 years later:
➡ Grey Goose became the default “premium vodka”
➡ Competitors copied the look
➡ Bacardi paid $2.3 BILLION

No overnight success.
Just disciplined positioning.

Lesson most builders miss:
Innovation gets attention.
Positioning creates power.

Experience didn’t slow him down.
It sharpened him.

Long vision.
Clear narrative.
Unshakeable belief.

#founders #scalingup #businessstrategy #longtermthinking

Most people think Starbucks’ rewards program is about free coffee.

It isn’t.

It’s about cash flow.

Starbucks Rewards is not a loyalty perk.
It’s a prepaid deposit system.

When a customer loads money into the app, Starbucks gets paid before any coffee is made.
Accounting-wise, that money sits as deferred revenue.

But operationally?
It’s usable cash.

That’s the move.

Instead of waiting for daily transactions, Starbucks created a system where millions of customers fund operations in advance.

No interest.
No bank fees.
No dilution.
No debt.

Every preload improves:
✅ Working capital
✅ Liquidity
✅ Balance sheet strength

And Starbucks holds that cash until the customer redeems it.

Some never do.

Unused balances.
Forgotten cards.
Abandoned apps.

That “breakage” flows straight to profit.

Multiply this behavior across ~29 million users and you don’t have a rewards program anymore.

You have a deposit base.

This is why Starbucks scales so efficiently:
▶ Stores expand faster
▶ Cash flow stays predictable
▶ Capital stress stays low

They didn’t out-market competitors.
They re-engineered when money moves.

The lesson:-

Growth isn’t always about selling more.
Sometimes it’s about getting paid earlier.

Starbucks didn’t build loyalty.
They built a financial engine and wrapped it in a green apron.#ceo #scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

Most companies scale faster by cutting people.
Publix scaled stronger by owning the opposite.

95 years. Zero layoffs.
Not luck. Not culture posters.
A Scaling Up system done right.

➡ Promote from within
➡ Clear succession planning
➡ Everyone thinks like an owner
➡ Leaders built, not bought
➡ Long-term value over short-term savings

When people own the outcome, execution compounds.
When leadership is grown internally, trust scales.

This isn’t a feel-good story.
This strategy may not be your strategy. 
For Publix, It’s a people strategy that beat Walmart.

You have to find what it's true for your company. 

Scale isn’t about size.
It’s about who owns the results.

#scalingup #growth #CEO

No Layoffs?

ADIDAS LOST €1.5 BILLION.
NOT TO NIKE.
NOT TO THE MARKET.
BUT TO ITS OWN BUREAUCRACY.

January 2023:
Dead Yeezy stock.
First loss since 1992.
Slow teams. Scared decisions. Broken speed.

9 months later?
Profitable. Faster. Sharper. Beating Nike.

The turnaround wasn’t magic.
It was leadership.

One CEO did 3 things most companies avoid:
→ Cut layers
→ Killed approvals
→ Simplified what already worked

No hype.
No noise.
Just speed, clarity, and conviction.

Big lesson:
You don’t lose because you’re small.
You lose because you’re slow.

Sometimes the fix isn’t more strategy.
It’s less nonsense.

#scalingup #CEO #founders #growth

ADIDAS Story

He didn’t fail for 10 years.
The market just wasn’t ready yet.

Hwang Dong-Hyuk sold his $675 laptop to buy food.
Lived with his grandmother.
Got rejected for a decade.

Studios said:

➡️ Too weird
➡️ Too violent
➡️ Not commercial
➡️ Too complex

Same script.
Same idea.
Same “no”.

Here’s the part most people miss 👇

This wasn’t a talent problem.
It was a timing + distribution problem.

He had the product early.
The market came late.

In 2018, Netflix expands globally.
Needs bold, non-safe content.
Needs local stories with global emotion.

One exec reads the script and says:
“This is exactly what we need.”

$21.4M invested.
Zero marketing push.
No homepage love.

Result?

✓ #1 in 94 countries
✓ 1.65B viewing hours
✓ $900M+ value created
✓ Best ROI in Netflix history

Scaling lesson most founders ignore:

Great ideas don’t die.
They wait.

If you’re early:
Don’t dilute the vision to get small yeses.
Build proof elsewhere.
Survive long enough to meet the right platform.

Scaling isn’t about changing your idea.

It’s about finding the right leverage.

One right distributor > 1,000 wrong pitches.

Ten years of “weird”
became a global empire.

Sometimes the world just isn’t ready yet.

Stay in the game long enough… and it will be.
#scalingup #founderstories #growth #CEO

The World Isnt Ready

Growth without cash flow is just noise. 📉
Dives deeper into why founders who master cash strategy scale faster, stay resilient, and win long term.

Full Cash Is King podcast episode premiering Friday 🚀

🔔 Turn on notifications so you don’t miss the next clips—and the full conversation.

👉 Set your reminder & watch the premiere here:
https://lnkd.in/eBnXhnie

#CashIsKing #DevinSizemore #PodcastShorts #BusinessPodcast
#CashFlowManagement #ScalingBusiness #FounderMindset
#SustainableGrowth #WealthStrategy #EntrepreneurLife
#YouTubePremiere #PodcastReels

GIANTS don’t fall overnight.
They fall one comfortable decision at a time.

They built the category.
Owned the market.
Had money, talent, and trust.

Then they did one thing wrong 👇
They stopped adapting.

Motorola. 
Intel. 
Netscape. 
Borders.

Not stupid.
Not unlucky.
Just late.

The market doesn’t punish failure.
It punishes complacency.

Scroll through this carousel if you want a reminder of one brutal truth:
➡️ Past success is not future security.
➡️ Comfort is more dangerous than competition.
➡️ If you’re not improving, someone else is preparing to replace you.

Stay hungry.
Or become a case study.
#SCALINGUP #CEO #FOUNDER #GROWTH

CRITICAL MISTAKES

Most people don’t need a new year.

They need a new operating system.

2026 won’t reward louder marketing, more hustle, or more tools.
It will reward founders who build clarity early and compound it fast.

What I’m seeing with founders between $3M–$10M is consistent:
• When financial visibility improves, decisions slow down in the right way
• Leadership shifts from reactive to intentional
• Teams stop guessing and start executing
• Growth becomes calmer, not heavier

Breakthroughs rarely come from doing more.
They come from removing noise and tightening the system.
That’s the mindset I’m taking into 2026.

Less chaos. More leverage. Fewer moves. Better ones.

If you’re also thinking about how you want to operate differently next year, I wrote a short piece on what actually creates momentum at this stage.

DM me or write "2026", and I will share the memo I wrote for my clients and friends with you.

#ceo #founder #scalingup

He refused to touch a $1.50 hot dog, and it helped build a ~$250B business.

Jim Sinegal.
Costco co-founder.

Inflation hit.
Costs rose.
Wall Street pushed the obvious move:

“Raise prices.”

Jim’s response was blunt:

“If you raise the price of the hot dog, you’re done.”

No slides.
No consultants.
No narrative gymnastics.

Just a rule.

So Costco did what most companies won’t:

They redesigned the system.
* Built their own production capacity
* Reduced supplier dependency
* Ruthlessly simplified SKUs
* Absorbed costs where trust mattered most

Instead of passing pain to customers, they owned it.

While others:
→ Blamed inflation
→ Shrunk products
→ Optimized short-term margins

Costco:
→ Held the line on iconic prices
→ Added ~5M new member households
→ Sustained ~92% renewal rates
→ Scaled to ~$250B in annual revenue

Here’s the part most founders miss:

They weren’t protecting a hot dog.

They were protecting trust.

And trust compounds faster than margins ever will.

Most companies raise prices to survive.
Strong companies redesign economics so prices don’t have to.

Boring moves.
Brutal discipline.
Unfair long-term advantage.

So what’s the one price, promise, or principle in your business that you refuse to break, no matter the pressure?

#scalingup #founders #leadership #pricing #ceo

A Sony engineer watched his daughter play Nintendo in 1984 and thought “the sound on this thing is garbage.”

Ken Kutaragi secretly built a better chip and gave it to Nintendo. Sony almost fired him for it.

Then he convinced Sony to partner with Nintendo on a CD-ROM console called the “Play Station.”

June 1991. Sony announces the partnership at CES.

Next morning? Nintendo takes the same stage and dumps Sony for Philips.

Sony’s board wanted to quit gaming entirely. Called it a “toy business.”

Kutaragi stormed into the president’s office. “Are you going to be a laughing stock to Nintendo for the rest of your life?”

The president’s response: “Just do it.”

They had to exile Kutaragi’s team to Sony Music because headquarters refused to house the project.

Then Kutaragi pitched Sega on a joint console. Their board laughed: “That’s a stupid idea. Sony doesn’t know how to make hardware.”

Betrayed by Nintendo. Rejected by Sega. Nearly killed by his own company.

December 1994. PlayStation launches. 100,000 units sold day one.
At E3, Sega announced the Saturn at $399. Sony’s Steve Race walked to the mic, said “$299,” and walked off. Standing ovation.

By 1998, PlayStation was 40% of Sony’s total profit. 563 million PlayStations sold across all generations. The PS2 is still the best-selling console ever.
The prototype’s codename? “PS-X.” Everyone knew the X was a reminder of who crossed them.

Most founders think this is a story about revenge. It’s not.
Kutaragi’s biggest fight wasn’t Nintendo or Sega. It was his own organization that thought the vision was beneath them.

That’s usually the real constraint. Not your competition. The blind spots inside your own company that nobody’s willing to name.

#scalingup #founder #ceo #growth

In 1997, Jeff Bezos was stressed for all the right reasons.

Amazon was losing money.
Online retail wasn’t proven.
Most investors thought he was wrong.

Here’s the part people miss:

Stress doesn’t come from working hard.
It comes from knowing what to do and not doing it.

So Bezos acted.
Packed boxes himself.
Made the calls.
Shipped anyway.

No fancy office.
A door for a desk.
A Honda Accord in the parking lot.

Fast forward to amazon have $2.6 TRILLION market cap.

Lessons for founders:

▶️ Action kills anxiety
▶️ Clarity is earned through execution
▶️ Fancy setups don’t build big companies
▶️ Ignore opinions, obey the math
▶️ The long game compounds quietly

If something is stressing you out right now,
it’s probably your to-do list calling you out.

#scalingup #founder #ceo #growth

If everything is a priority, nothing scales.

That’s why most companies don’t stall from lack of ideas.
They stall from lack of focus.

The Power of One fixes that brutally fast.

Here’s the rule:

At every level of the business, there is ONE thing that matters more than everything else.

Not a vision board.
Not 12 KPIs.
One outcome that moves the needle now.

Company:
→ One #1 priority for the quarter that makes growth unavoidable.

Leaders:
→ One measurable result they own. No hiding. No excuses.

Teams:
→ One clear objective that directly supports the company's priority.

Individuals:
→ One commitment that, if done daily, makes execution inevitable.

Why this works (and why most won’t do it):

➡️ Focus beats intelligence
➡️ Clarity beats motivation
➡️ Ownership beats meetings
➡️ Execution beats strategy decks

Scaling isn’t about adding more people, more tools, or more plans.

It’s about removing everything that doesn’t matter
until what’s left cannot fail.

That’s the Power of One.

What is the one thing in your business that is calling for your full dedicated attention?

What are the things you are willing to pause so that you can fix it and remove the constraint?

#scaling #founders #growth #ceo

This is Why Companies Fail

Most founders do not have a growth problem.

They have a strategy stacking problem.

That is what the 7 Strata of Strategy solves.

It is a framework created by Verne Harnish to force clarity on the 7 layers that actually drive scale, profitability, and differentiation.

Not vision statements.
 Not buzzwords.
 Real strategic leverage.

What is the 7 Strata?

A practical checklist for building a strategy that compounds.

It answers one question:

“Why should the right customer choose you, pay you more, and stay longer?”

When to use it

Use the 7 Strata when:
• Revenue has stalled between $3M to $10M
 • Sales feels harder than it should
 • Margins are thin
 • Marketing sounds generic
 • The team cannot clearly explain why you win
 • You are scaling but complexity is rising faster than profit

It is especially powerful during:
• Annual planning
 • Strategy resets
 • Go-to-market changes
 • Repositioning
 • Pre-scale phase

What each Stratum means

Words You Own
 The category in the customer’s mind.
 If you do not define it, the market will.

Sandbox
 Who you serve and where you win.
 Focus creates power.

Brand Promise
 The measurable result customers can expect.

Brand Promise Guarantee
 How you reduce risk and increase trust.

Differentiating Activities (3 to 5)
 What you do differently that competitors cannot easily copy.

X-Factor
 Your 10x to 100x structural advantage.
 Process, data, network, cost, or ecosystem.

Profit per X + BHAG
 Your economic engine and long-term target.

This is where strategy meets money.

Why 7 Strata?

Because advantage is layered.

Most companies operate with 2 or 3 layers.

Strong companies stack all 7.

Each layer multiplies the others:

Positioning
 → Focus
 → Trust
 → Differentiation
 → Structural advantage
 → Profit engine
 → Long-term dominance

Miss one, and growth leaks.

The founder truth

If your strategy cannot be explained on one page, it cannot scale.

Clarity is not a branding exercise.
 It is a profit lever.

If you are operating between $3M to $10M and growth feels heavier every year, your next breakthrough is probably not more hustle.

It is a sharper stack.

If you want, I can share the worksheet I use with founders to map this in under 60 minutes.

Just DM SEVEN

#scaling #growth #CEO #founder

Cash flow isn’t optional—it’s the #1 rule behind sustainable business growth 💸
In this episode, Devin Sizemore breaks down how smart cash strategy fuels scale, stability, and long-term success.

Full podcast episode premiering 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗝𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟯𝗿𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝟳𝗔𝗠 𝗘𝗦𝗧 🚀

🔔 Turn on notifications so you don’t miss the next reels and the full episode.

👉 Set your reminder & watch the premiere here:
https://lnkd.in/eBnXhnie

#CashIsKing #DevinSizemore #BusinessPodcast #PodcastReels
#CashFlow #EntrepreneurMindset #ScalingBusiness #FounderTalk
#SustainableGrowth #WealthStrategy #StartupGrowth

Most founders brag about revenue.

That’s a mistake.

I’ve seen companies doing millions a year…
and the owner is still stressed, still stuck, still one bad month away from panic.

Why?

Because revenue doesn’t buy freedom.
Profit does.

More revenue without profit just gives you:

• More people
• More complexity
• More risk
• Same lifestyle

That’s not growth.
That’s leverage working against you.

Here’s the truth:

Growth does not start with selling more.
It starts with a profitable system.

There are only 3 levers that matter:

1. Price – Are you charging what it’s worth?

2. Volume – Are these the right customers?

3. Cost – Are you efficient without breaking delivery?

Everything else is noise.

Fix those three, and profit shows up.

Profit gives you:

➡️ Margin for mistakes
➡️ Proof the model works
➡️ Room to breathe

Profit turns into cash.

Cash pays the team.
Cash pays you.
Cash funds growth without stress.

Then you reinvest:
Better people.
Better systems.
Better clients.

That feeds the engine.

The engine creates more profit.

And now growth funds itself.

Stop asking:
❌ “How do we get more revenue?”

Start asking:
✅ “How do we make this system more profitable?”

Revenue is movement.
Profit is power.

If your business feels fragile, it’s because it is.

Fix the system.
The money follows.

Are you focused on more revenues or more profit in your business?  What would your business look like if you had more profit with the same amount of revenue?

#scalingup #growth #Ceo #founder

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