Archita Fritz

Assurance Services International

Member of The Supervisory Board

hubble

You can book a 1:1 with me here:
 https://www.hubble.social/architafritz

Advice on everything:
✔️ Build Commercial Engines
✔️ Product Marketing
✔️ Scale Founder-Led Growth
✔️ Position for Multiples
✔️ Workforce Planning & Leadership
✔️ Building a Boardroom Career
✔️ Career Transitions

Advisor

Ready Set Bold

Fractional Executive Partner
—————————————
I embed with mid market PE- and VC-backed portfolio companies for focused, 4- to 11-month sprints, turning strategy into measurable results.

Typical challenges I solve
	•	Mis-aligned Product Vision → Execution
I bridge the gap between roadmap, build, and commercialisation so every feature ships with a revenue story.
	•	Quality Whiplash
I create frameworks that balance urgent customer issues with long-range innovation—no more trade-offs between delight and disruption.
	•	Silo-Driven Slow-Downs
I replace hand-offs with hand-shakes, bringing Product, Sales, Support, and Finance into one transparent cadence.
	•	Ghost GTM Plans
I install a pragmatic, metrics-first GTM engine that prioritises, sequences, and launches for maximum speed-to-money.

⸻

Workplace Culture Strategist
——————————————
Using a data-backed diagnostic rooted in research and lived experience, I help organisations move from awareness to action on:
	•	Psychological safety & “speak-up” culture
	•	Cross-team communication loops
	•	Team health → performance → profit

⸻

By the numbers
	•	25+ product launches
	•	$2.1 B cumulative revenue impact
	•	128+ countries served
	•	20+ years leading global, cross-functional teams

⸻

Selected client roster
BlueMountain · CluePoints · ResMed · Sparking Capital · Adidas · NHS Lincolnshire · Verity HealXR · Spookfish Innovations · Bright Spaces · Vatis Tech · FlaminJoy

⸻

If you need a high-impact operator who can land both product and people wins—fast—let’s talk.

Strategic Growth Catalyst : People and Product (Fractional CMO)

DfX (Deal Flow Xchange) is rethinking how private capital moves.
It’s not a fund or a network — it’s infrastructure.
A transparent, intent-driven platform where founders, investors, and lenders connect directly to get deals done. If you're raising, deploying, or lending capital — this is where you should be.
→ Learn more or request access: www.dealflowxchange.com

Sign up for our newsletter → https://lnkd.in/ebsicefQ
Are you a service provider? Plug into our network → https://lnkd.in/dJQsCCGm

Advisory Board Member

Veblen Director Programme

Chairperson of the 11 member Board of VDP. 

Through the Veblen community we work with Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s) to help place Board members that can move forward innovation, impact and growth. Additionally support aspiring Board members in building and landing Board Roles.

Chairperson of the Board

Rose Equity Partners

Non Executive Director

BetterLogiq

Board Member

Brydge Club

Brdyge Club is a private angel investing network for women who want to write checks, build wealth, and shape the future of innovation.

We’re reimagining what access looks like — not just for founders, but for female investors ready to move from the sidelines to the cap table.

If you’re an accredited woman looking to invest in early-stage companies with purpose and upside, apply to join the club. → https://brydgeclub.com/

Founding Member

Institute of Directors (IoD)

Member

Open-Intro

I am available for 1:1 direct meetings on Open-Intro. Book me at: https://open-intro.com/expert/archita-fritz

Expert on Open-Intro

Fractional Product Marketing Leader | I help operationalize product roadmaps for commercial success | Strategic Board Advisor | Workplace Culture

I’m a Fractional CMO for PE-backed, mid-market companies and founder-led teams in the middle of growth, pressure, and transition.

→ I identify the gaps: people, product, and process
→ I build the commercialization system they forgot to build
→ I help teams launch, enable sales, and scale—fast
→ I create clarity, culture, and structure so the full-time hire can succeed
→ I step out once the system works without me

This is not “marketing.”
This is what makes a business commercial—and scalable.

Where I’ve Done It
→ Took a company from $1.5M to $350M in revenue
→ Launched 25+ products across 80+ markets
→ Opened a $2.1B market opportunity through positioning and system-building
→ Built product marketing functions from scratch for 7 companies and 15 founders
→ Advised founders through post-acquisition transitions and culture realignment
→ Partnered with CROs and CPOs to align product, marketing, and sales enablement

Who I Work With
→ PE-backed CEOs who don’t have time to figure it out alone
→ Founders stuck between what worked and what will scale
→ Boards that need more than “just another hire”—they need traction
→ Teams that need clarity, coordination, and accountability yesterday

Why It Works
Because founder magic burns out without structure.
Because the board doesn’t want more activity—they want results.
Because clarity beats chaos, every time.

I build what should have been built six months ago.
And then I help you hire the person to run it long-term.

If you would like to chat or need advice, you can book a 1:1 with me here: https://www.hubble.social/architafritz

What Others Say
“Archita’s strategic vision opened a $2.1B market for us. Her leadership was crucial to our expansion.”
— Shiva Ralapalli, CEO, Verity HealXR

“She helped us connect the dots and activate our teams. She built our Product Marketing function and aligned commercial with product.”
— Patrick Hughes, CRO, CluePoints

“Archita activated me and the audience to lead better for my team and myself.”
— Katie Reget, VP of Sales, ResMed

“She had high expectations of the team, and I of her—and she exceeded all expectations.”
— Vlad Panait, VC Partner, Sparking Capital

Chief Marketing Officer

We rise by lifting others! Driven by a commitment to build psychologically safe workplaces where people can unapologetically be themselves Archita is resolutely focused to work with partners who want to look beyond metrics to help shape cultures of belonging and cancel out the silent acceptance of bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Archita is the strategy and marketing lead on campaigns, partnerships, products and promotion. If you want to partner with Speak Out on organisational campaigns or partnerships please connect with her.

Grateful to be named one of Product Marketing Alliance’s Top 100 Product Marketers globally, for the second year in a row.

For almost 20 years I did product marketing without knowing it had a name.

In med device we just called it:
“Get the product launched and don’t screw it up.” Or Upstream marketing! 

Only later did I realise there was a whole discipline behind what I was doing in the middle:

- between product and sales
- between the investment thesis and the actual customer
- between the board deck and the front line

Over those ~20 years, I’ve helped bring 45+ products to market across:
	•	medical devices
	•	life sciences
	•	B2B tech & SaaS
	•	manufacturing

While they have been across different industries, I have noticed the same patterns. 

👉🏽 𝑽𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 (𝒐𝒓 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒚𝒆𝒅) 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓.

When nobody truly owns that layer, you get:
- beautiful products that never hit their number
- sales teams improvising a story that doesn’t match reality 
- leaders wondering why the plan works in Excel, but not in the market

In PE-backed and high-growth companies, product marketing is not “nice-to-have marketing”.

𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 

- pressure-testing the thesis against real customers
- choosing which problems to solve first
- arming GTM teams so revenue doesn’t depend on heroics

That’s the work I care about.

The recognition is just a visible signal of an invisible job a lot of us have been doing for years.

To the team at Product Marketing Alliance – thank you for shining a light on this craft and for putting me on the list again this year. 🙏🏽

Read up about all the other 99 here: https://lnkd.in/d7qWTUBX

And to the CEOs / value creation leaders reading this…

𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴.
𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘦𝘵… 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦.

PS: Congratulations to the other Product Marketing leaders recognized for this. Honoured to be amongst this cohort. Full list in the comments below.

——

Hi 👋🏾 I’m Archita. I spent 17 years in MedTech and now partner with investor- and private equity–backed CEOs, boards, and commercial leaders to build growth plans their teams can actually execute.

Archita Fritz 

Partner to Private Equity CEOs | GTM & Value Creation | Board Member | 2 x Top 100 Product Marketing Leader

Archita Fritz, Top 100 Global Product marketeer as recognized by Product Marketing Alliance. Archita Fritz Value Creation Partner to Private Equity CxO‘s and PE firms 

Last weekend I went back to Kellogg-WHU Executive MBA to teach the leadership module I sat in 8 years ago.

While it was a new cohort with senior EMBA leaders from multiple countries, industries, and P&Ls.

One thing hasn’t changed as much in these 8 years.

When I asked where they feel the most pressure right now, the top answer wasn’t “strategy” or “performance.”

It was this:

“𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧-𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐’𝘮 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦.”

I see the same pattern in my private equity client work too. 

We still don’t really train our current or next generation of leaders to stay self-aware under pressure.

And yet it’s self-aware leaders who quietly build:
	•	better teams
	•	healthier organisations
	•	stronger communities

In the room, we had a lot of healthy debate as the leaders could describe the system ‘issues’ in perfect detail…

promotion rules, politics, cultural norms, short-term targets.

But when the pressure hits, the behaviours they tend to default to, looked familiar:

↳ hovering and micromanaging
↳ snapping
↳ telling instead of listening
↳ those “devil emails at midnight” Mita Mallick  writes about

Often followed by this sentence I hear in almost every geography: 

“In a high-performance culture, you have to be more direct.”
“In my country, this style of leadership doesn’t work.”

𝑪𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒂𝒃𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅.
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒆𝒙𝒄𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒆.

This is why I teach leadership as an operating system: within my Leadership OS™: 
Me → We → System → Future.

If Me is ignored:
	•	We don’t feel safe
	•	System changes don’t stick
	•	Future stays a story on slides

“Me” work for a senior leader isn’t a fancy offsite. It’s tiny, in-the-moment reps:

➟ Notice your first reflex under pressure: attack, withdraw, or hover.
➟ Name it: “I’m in micromanager / attack / rescue mode right now.”
➟ Choose one different move: ask a question, delay the midnight email, or take 90 seconds before you walk into the room.

To the EMBA leaders who spent Saturday with me….thank you!

You challenged the ideas. 
You challenged me. 

Many of you didn’t agree with everything we discussed, and you still stayed in the conversation.

That’s where real leadership work begins.

PS: Mita Mallick every student got a code to a copy of your book and thank you for taking time to record with us before!  To more aware leaders.

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In my house, there were only two correct answers to:
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Doctor
Engineer

But in the breaks at school, over steel tiffins from 5th grade onwards, I’d lean in and quietly tell my friends:

“I want to be a DJ.”

It was 90’s India. MTV VJs and radio DJs were everything, loud, free, fully themselves.

If my mum had known I was harbouring that dream, it would’ve been squashed instantly.

So I did what a lot of us do:

I kept the ‘wrong dream’ off fhe record. 
Got the grades, followed the path, got a scholarship, moved countries, started working on that engineering degree and collected responsibilities.

And then while at Michigan Tech in  Houghton, Michigan someone says, “There’s a student radio station here… 91.9 FM.”

Bam.

That hidden dream finally found a doorway.
A few months later, “Chai with Archita on WMTU 91.9FM” was on air, the only world music show in the entire Upper Peninsula.

It wasn’t a grand career move.
It was one small, very real way to let 10-year-old me exist in my actual life.

We quieten and defer a lot of these dreams.
We don’t just do this with childhood dreams.

We do it with adult ones too:
“I’ll start when work calms down.”
“When the kids are older.”
“Once this promotion is sorted.”

Here’s your Sunday nudge:

This isn’t just about childhood dreams.
It’s also the adult ones you quietly downgraded to “later” or “maybe when things calm down”.

👉🏽 What’s the thing you keep labelling “maybe one day”…and what’s the smallest real way you could let it live in 2026?

👇🏽In the comments, I’ve linked my latest newsletter, “Before 2026 Finds You on the Same Treadmill” , it’s a short read and a simple way to stop postponing the thing you already know you want (including a 90-minute option if you want support).

PS: I found this old student planner with a picture from my DJ days on a family trip back to Michigan last summer…wild what we forget we’ve already been brave enough to do.

Partner to Private Equity CEOs | GTM & Value Creation | Board Member | Top 100 PMA Product Marketing Leader

Archita Fritz advisor to Private Equity CEO’s also helping corporate individuals activate their childhood and adult tiny dreams they keep deffering to ‘some day’ 

The worst career advice that stuck in my head in my 20s was this line:

“Be brief. Be brilliant. Be gone.”

I heard it before my first big sales meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I was a quality engineer in MedTech, one of the only non-sales people in a huge room full of suits. That line was meant as presentation advice, but my brain took it everywhere.

Every time I bumped into someone senior, my internal script was:

You’ve got 20 seconds.
Don’t waste their time.
Say something smart.
Exit.

I wasn’t silent.
I laughed at the right moments, made safe comments about the weather, asked where people had flown in from.

But inside I was thinking,

“I don’t know these people. I don’t know the politics. I don’t know what they actually care about. How the hell am I supposed to be ‘brilliant’ in small talk?”

It made every hallway chat feel like a tiny performance review.

Fast forward a lot of years.

Now I get short windows with private equity operating partners and CEOs in a completely new world to me. 

The time is still limited. 
Their calendars are still packed.

But I use that old line differently now.

➟ In formal updates: 
“Be brief” still holds. 
Know your point, land the point and stop talking.

➟ In human moments: 
I drop “be brilliant” completely.

𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏.

I focus on two things only:
	1.	Know why I’m in the room.
	2.	Be a normal human about it.

That’s it.

“Be brief, be brilliant, be gone” is great for slides and steering committees.

As a personality setting, it quietly convinces you you’re not worth anyone’s time unless you perform for it first.

I know I’m not the only one who had to unlearn that.

PS: Yes, that’s me in the ‘suit’, in that same room just many years later. I still believe in “be brief” for updates. I just refuse to make people feel like every hello has to be “brilliant” to count.

——

Hi 👋🏾 I’m Archita. I spent 17 years in MedTech and now partner with investor- and private equity–backed CEOs, boards, and commercial leaders to build growth plans their teams can actually execute.

Archita Fritz, Private Equity Advisor to CEO’s and Operating Partners “You don’t owe brilliant on demand. You already earned your seat.” 

I hit every work and life goal I set as an 19-year-old… and then I “manifested” a toxic boss. :) 

When I was 19, I sat down with a pen and paper and wrote my 20s out like a checklist.

By 21, I wanted a dream job, a sponsored visa, to graduate debt-free and buy my dream car.
By 24, be engaged.
By 25, marry a kind, steady man I could build a life with.
By 27, live in a new country and do something meaningful there.
By 30, become a director and have my first child.
By 32, have my second kid. 

And in many ways, it worked.

Career, visa, marriage, kids, international move, director title, the list filled up with neat little ticks. I even added a third little human who never appeared on the original checklist and is one of the best plot twists of my life.

I’m very aware there’s a lot of privilege in that paragraph, education, opportunity, support, luck. A lot of people work just as hard and don’t get the same outcomes. That’s exactly why it took me a while to admit: something still felt off.

If I look back now, my late teens were performance as survival.
My 20s were listen. learn. lead. Watch closely, take notes, then step up.
My early 30s were operate. expand. prove. Bigger scope, M&A, more responsibility, more “you’ve made it” from the outside.

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭. 

Not a cartoon villain, but the kind of leader who can turn every win into a question mark. Praising you in one breath and poking holes in the next, until you start to doubt your own judgement. Even when the results are right in front of you.

I would never have called that time a gift back then. Now I can see it cracked the checklist wide open. 

👉🏽 It forced me to finally ask different questions:

What do I actually want my days to feel like?

If no one was clapping, would I still choose this work, this pace, this version of “success”?

Where am I performing a role instead of living my own story?

That’s when my late 30s quietly shifted into a new chapter: ask. unlearn. choose.

𝑨𝒔𝒌 better questions.
𝑼𝒏𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏 the scripts that were never really mine. 
𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒔𝒆 a life I can actually recognize myself in. 

So if you pressed pause on everyone else’s expectations for a moment, family, culture, your 18-year-old self….

👉🏽 what would your version of success look like right now?

Archita Fritz keynoting at Impact Players in Belfast Ireland

Some of the worst value destruction I’ve seen didn’t come from a bad strategy. It came from a decent plan no one felt allowed to question.

This photo is from my first “proper” photoshoot in Los Angeles.

It looks calm and glossy.

What you don’t see is everything wrapped around it:
      •	12 weeks postpartum
	•	a big product launch in Barcelona
	•	a main-stage talk in Los Angeles 
	•	24 hours later next launch in Seattle
      •	48 hours later back to Dussledorf 
	•	flights, decks, rehearsal, inbox, repeat 

On the outside, it looked like momentum.
On the inside, the script was pretty simple:

Don’t slow down.
Don’t drop anything.
Don’t question the plan.

And that’s what so many companies feel like right now.

On paper, everything looks great.

Inside the business, people are sprinting from one “critical” thing to the next with almost no space to say:

“With what we know now, this plan needs to change.”

That’s what I talked about with Dane 🦘 Groeneveld on the The Future of Teamwork  podcast. 

In the episode, we get into:

1️⃣ Why “we’re on a PE clock” is not a leadership strategy
2️⃣ How noise around GTM, value creation and “transformation” confuses CEOs who actually want to do the right thing
3️⃣ What healthier high-performance can look like when you lead with clarity, ownership and space to challenge the plan

🎧 Episode with Dane Groeneveld, here or anywhere you get your podcasts.

https://lnkd.in/gwpeyWPp

P.S. This was a really fun photoshoot with my fellow high-performance queen and co-host of the Embracing "Only" Podcast  podcast circa 2020. 

——

Hi 👋🏾 I’m Archita. I spent 17 years in MedTech and now partner with investor- and private equity–backed CEOs, boards, and commercial leaders to build growth plans their teams can actually execute.

Archita Fritz at a photo shoot before getting on stage at Podcast Evolutions. Private Equity commercial and leadership advisor 

If the idea of slowing down today makes you feel a bit guilty, this is for you.

𝑴𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒖𝒔 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌.
𝑾𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆.

That little voice that says:
“If I slow down, I’ll lose momentum.”
“Everyone else is sprinting to year-end. I can’t ease up now.”

I know that voice well.

But life isn’t one straight line up.
There are stretches where you push, and stretches where you flatline a bit so you can climb again.

Today is Thanksgiving for my friends in the U.S.(and for those of us celebrating over here too).

We are having a small Friendsgiving tonight, and I have decided my pause is today and tomorrow.

Then the year-end sprint picks up again.

If you’re reading this while you’re:
↳ prepping food
↳ cleaning the house
↳ answering “what time should we come?” for the fifth time
↳ or just trying to get through a regular Thursday

You still get to claim a small pause:
➟ ten quiet minutes in the car before you go back in
➟ one meal where your phone stays in another room
➟ a short walk with no podcast, no call, just your own thoughts

I hope you claim one small, imperfect, very human pause in the middle of it all.

Not because you “earned it”, but because rest is part of how you do your best work and how you show up for the people you love.

If you needed permission, this is it.

PS: I got to pause with the lovely humans in this photo below about a month ago and we took the whole weekend. Truly grateful for these ladies, and the ones not in this picture too. 🧡

----
Hi, I’m Archita. I work with Private Equity (PE)-backed CEOs and value creation teams to fix what’s slowing growth, usually misalignment, messy messaging, or GTM systems that don’t scale.

I also serve on several boards, where I support founder-led and investor-backed companies navigating growth, governance, and strategic clarity.

👉🏽 Book a 1:1 via my featured section. (Serious enquiries only — otherwise, start with the Hubble link.)

A lot of brilliant people I work with...VP, Director, C-suite and other leaders, are quietly asking the same question right now:

“What if I don’t want 2026 to look like 2025… or 2024… or the three years before that?”

Not because you want to quit.
Not because everything is awful.

But 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒏 𝒂 𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒍𝒆, 𝒂 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆, 𝒂 𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕.

Before I ever left corporate, I sat with that same feeling.

For almost three years while I was still in my global / EMEA roles, I quietly started building optionality for myself, testing different ways of working, building my own IP, saying yes to advisory and board-style work, and learning how to talk about what I do beyond a job title.

That’s the work that turned into what I have now...

PE-backed CEO work, 
a portfolio of board roles, 
advisory, speaking, 
and The Embracing "Only" Podcast with Olivia Grant-Cream.

And that’s why we created Embracing “Only” in the first place, to give people the space to talk honestly about what comes after you’ve succeeded at everything everyone told you to do.

And today, for the first time ever, I am sharing a low-touch, high-impact end-of-year invitation with our 3K newsletter subscribers:

👉🏾 A subsidised 90-minute 1:1 Activation Session
👉🏾 Specifically for those exploring a portfolio career
👉🏾 Or for those exploring a Board career
👉🏾 5 spots only
👉🏾 10% donated to Olivia’s GoFundMe 
(Read more about Hurricane Melissa efforts in the comments below)

And if it’s not the season for paid support, we included a few free episodes to guide your next step.

If 2026 needs to feel different for you…start here.

PS: If you had to pick one word for what you want more of in your work life in 2026, what would it be? 

----
Hi, I’m Archita. I work with Private Equity (PE)-backed CEOs and value creation teams to fix what’s slowing growth, usually misalignment, messy messaging, or GTM systems that don’t scale.

I also serve on several boards, where I support founder-led and investor-backed companies navigating growth, governance, and strategic clarity.

👉🏽 Book a 1:1 via my featured section. (Serious enquiries only — otherwise, start with the Hubble link.)

Most people reading this are not trying to blow up their lives. You’re in full-time, high-pressure leadership roles. You’re running teams, carrying nu

Open article: Before 2026 Finds You on the Same Treadmill: A Small Invitation for the “Onlys” by Archita Fritz • 4 min read

Before 2026 Finds You on the Same Treadmill: A Small Invitation for the “Onlys”

Seventeen years in MedTech left me with one permanent side effect…

I can’t look at a growth story without picturing the humans who have to carry it.

Once you’ve watched an ICU team on a bad day, you stop believing pretty plans.

Back then I worked on devices that lived in acute care settings of hospitals, if we were pitching a new product idea or a big launch, it was never enough that the slide looked smart.

Someone would always ask:
“Okay, what does this look like on a bad shift?”

Every “big bet” had two parts:
- the upside case
- and a ruthless pass on what had to go right in real life, with tired people

We didn’t just ask, “Is the market there?”

We asked things like:
↳ Who has to change their behaviour on a bad day, not a good one?

↳ How many steps are we adding to their shift?

↳ Where does this break first when the ward is short-staffed and everyone is on hour eleven?

If that part didn’t hold up, the launch didn’t move.

Not because we were nice, but because ignoring it was the fastest way to get shut down.

In Private Equity (PE) backed high growth companies, I see the reverse.

Weeks of work on TAM, pricing, scenarios and upside. Then “execution risk” gets one slide and a hand wave at best.

You’re doing serious work on the market side of the thesis and almost no serious work on whether the organisation can actually absorb the plan you’re buying.

That’s not a minor gap.

𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝒆𝒙𝒆𝒄𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒌.

Alix Partners data shows 56% of PE-backed CEOs are replaced within two years, usually for 

➟ ‘failure to execute the thesis’, not because the market disappeared.

Because of MedTech, I’m wired to stress-test a plan, not just get excited about it.

Now, when I look at your “growth story”, that’s the part my brain refuses to skip.

If your story only lives in the spreadsheet and not in the calendar and nervous system of the people who have to execute it, it’s not a strategy.

It’s a wish.

PS: My dad beaming while on his “daughters” stretcher, after finding himself on it after a fall a few years ago. Almost a decade later still so proud I helped launch The Stryker PrimeX into this world! 

——

Hi 👋🏾 I’m Archita. I spent 17 years in MedTech and now partner with investor- and private equity–backed CEOs, boards, and commercial leaders to build growth plans their teams can actually execute.

How MedTech Marketing helps stress test Private Equity backed high growth companies! 

I sat through 103 B2B SaaS product demos this year.
Not one of them made it easy for me to just experience the product.

No login-free walkthrough.
No short, honest flow I could click through on my own.

Best case, I got:
 – a “Book a demo” wall
 – a discovery call
 – 15–20 minutes of slides
 – then a partial screen share of a half-broken sandbox

And then the call ended and I realised I was still guessing:
 “What does this actually change for my client/their customer next quarter?”

I see this as someone buying tools, building AI SDR stacks, and working with PE-backed leadership teams:

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒓 “𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒕” 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒚 𝒍𝒐𝒘.

The closest I’ve seen are things like demo hubs (e.g. Klue’s demo arena, something by Rob Hoffman).

 But even those stop just short of:
“Here. Click through this one real workflow like it’s your own.”

If I were running GTM for a SaaS company in 2026, 

I’d start with one question:

👉🏾 How easy is it for a serious buyer to actually experience what we do, without jumping through hoops?

My answer would need to look like this:
 – One ungated, 60–90 second interactive walkthrough from the website
 – One real workflow, end-to-end, that looks like a real day in the life
 – Clear language: “You’re [role]. Here’s the moment you’re in.”
 – A concrete outcome: “This is what changes for you next quarter.”
 – A link I can replay and share internally without booking another call

And honestly it isn't about being clever, it's about respecting buyers’ time and brains.

This is where interactive demo platforms like Guideflow actually make sense to me:

not as “prettier sales decks”, but as a way to finally ship:
 – one link
 – one clear walkthrough
 – one shared product story for buyers, teams, and investors

I wish I could tell you I saw five perfect examples of this in 2025.
I didn’t.

Which means: whoever builds it properly in 2026 will stand out fast.

And yes I made my own version of Wrapped for Product Demos to bring this home! :)

👋🏾  If you’ve seen a truly ungated, “just let me in” product walkthrough this year, drop it below. I’m genuinely curious, and I’d love to be wrong.

#GuideFlowPartner #sponsored

PS: You can check out and complete a real product walk through on the GuideFlow website at: https://lnkd.in/ez6Fc6b6

——

Hi 👋🏾 I’m Archita. I spent 17 years in MedTech and now partner with investor- and private equity–backed CEOs, boards, and commercial leaders to build growth plans their teams can actually execute.

"Book a Demo" Button Wrapped across multiple B2B SaaS

In private equity, this line is a red flag:
“We can’t prove marketing’s impact on revenue.”

If nothing in marketing can be tied to 

pipeline, 
win rate, 
deal size, 
or sales cycle,

you don’t just have a marketing problem
you have a value-creation problem.

Not everything needs perfect attribution.

But something needs a clear chain:
product marketing → sharper story → better opportunities → better economics.

And before anyone jumps in with
“but brand / comms / PMM is hard to attribute”
I agree, not everything gets a perfect CAC number.

But every marketing function should have a clear, testable path to:
better pipeline
better win rates
better economics

That’s the bar I hold in my PE work, and it’s why I loved Product Marketing Alliance’s “How to Prove Product Marketing ROI” so much.

The article is a sharp breakdown on proving product marketing ROI, and I turned the core ideas into a short carousel you can save, share, and forward the next time someone says “how do we prove product marketing drives ROI.”

This is the work I do with PE-backed companies, turning “marketing is a cost centre” into a testable revenue engine.

👉🏾  Original article linked in the comments.

PS: Where do you draw the line between “we can’t measure this” and “we just haven’t been forced to?”

----
Hi, I’m Archita. I work with Private Equity (PE)-backed CEOs and value creation teams to fix what’s slowing growth, usually misalignment, messy messaging, or GTM systems that don’t scale.

I also serve on several boards, where I support founder-led and investor-backed companies navigating growth, governance, and strategic clarity.

👉🏽 Book a 1:1 via my featured section. (Serious enquiries only — otherwise, start with the Hubble link.)

How to Prove Product Marketing ROI

You keep hiring “change agents”…
and then designing their jobs so they can’t change anything.

New CEO.
New CRO.
New Head of GTM or Chief of Staff.

And then the same soundtrack in most Private Equity backed portcos when I step in: 
“Marketing isn’t working.”
“Sales isn’t executing.”
“We need more leads.”
“We’ve outgrown our GTM.”

That’s what this grid is about:
7 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘎𝘛𝘔 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘎𝘛𝘔 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺.

Because underneath the language, you usually find:
Not a skills problem, but an 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 problem
Not a sales problem, but a 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 problem
Not a people problem, but an 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 problem 
(this org is simply done pretending to transform)

And then the “change agent” becomes the easiest person to blame.

For me, the real multiple in PE looks more like:

(𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒆’𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆) × (𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒓𝒈 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒂𝒃𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒃)

If either piece is close to zero…
zero honesty × anything = still zero
any amount of honesty × zero emotional capacity = still zero

The lower of those two sets your real ceiling. Your model won’t go further than your honesty or your team’s emotional bandwidth.

PS: If you’re in PE or leading a portco or growth focused company...Which box in this grid do you hear the most right now and where do you disagree with this framing? I’m especially curious where you think it is a people problem, not a system one.

----
Hi, I’m Archita. I work with Private Equity (PE)-backed CEOs and value creation teams to fix what’s slowing growth, usually misalignment, messy messaging, or GTM systems that don’t scale.

I also serve on several boards, where I support founder-led and investor-backed companies navigating growth, governance, and strategic clarity.

👉🏽 Book a 1:1 via my featured section. (Serious enquiries only — otherwise, start with the Hubble link.)

What leaders say when Go-to-Market is Failing in Private Equity and Beyond


Most leaders I know are caught between three browser tabs:


1️⃣ Targets that went up
2️⃣ Headcount that went down
3️⃣ LinkedIn telling them AI + “efficient growth” will somehow square the circle

So I pulled the tools I use to answer these questions,  into a FREE Growth Toolbox you can grab below. 👇🏾

25+ of the most used assets I developed based on the work I do with companies. 

If you sit anywhere near private equity, that contrast is just louder.

You’re not short on ideas.

You’re short on clarity about:
↳Where the next €5–10M realistically comes from
↳Which customers you should actually fight for
↳Where AI genuinely creates leverage (vs. theatre)
↳How to push harder without frying your best people

That’s the work I do with portcos across EQT, Accel-KKR, Cinven, Nordic Capital and others.

Whenever something actually worked, we turned it into a reusable tool.

𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦:
👉🏾 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑬𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑮𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒕𝒉 𝑻𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒃𝒐𝒙

 25+ practical assets, including:
➟ “Quality of growth” scorecards
➟ GTM & ICP clarity frameworks
➟ Europe & market expansion checks
➟ AI focus maps (using the stack you already have)
➟ Product marketing & commercialization templates
➟ Leadership & anti-fragility prompts

It’s built with private equity portfolios in mind…but if you own a number, run a team, or live between “big targets” and real life, there’s probably something in there that will help you think and act more clearly this quarter.

If that sounds useful, just grab it.
👉🏾 The link to the toolbox is here: https://lnkd.in/eCunKCjU

No “comment GROWTH” ritual. 🙃 
Just the tools, in one place, so you can get back to making real decisions.

PS: If there’s a specific best practice, learning, or toolset you’d love to see next, around value creation, GTM, product marketing, or leadership, drop it in the comments. I’ll use that to decide what to build and share next.
----
Hi, I’m Archita. I work with Private Equity (PE)-backed CEOs and value creation teams to fix what’s slowing growth, usually misalignment, messy messaging, or GTM systems that don’t scale.

I also serve on several boards, where I support founder-led and investor-backed companies navigating growth, governance, and strategic clarity.

👉🏽 Book a 1:1 via my featured section. (Serious enquiries only — otherwise, start with the Hubble link.)

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

Scaling Founders Beyond $10M with Strategy, Financial Clarity, and Leadership Expansion

Most companies stall not because of lack of effort—
but because the founder has outgrown the systems, strategies, and financial models that once worked.

At Ascend Growth Ventures, we partner with CEOs of $3M–$10M companies to implement Scaling Up, strengthen financial infrastructure, and elevate leadership teams—building businesses that scale profitably and predictably, without burning out the founder.

By integrating Scaling Up, Exponential Organizations, and CFO-level financial insights, we deliver a complete, battle-tested system for sustainable, high-performance growth.

🔹 We Work With CEOs Who Want To:
✔️ Scale revenue and profits without chaos
✔️ Build self-managing leadership teams
✔️ Unlock hidden cash flow and improve financial decision-making
✔️ Sharpen their strategy for exponential growth
✔️ Prepare for capital raises, acquisitions, or exits

🔹 Our Core Focus Areas:
  * Strategic Scaling Up Implementation

  * Financial Strategy & Cash Optimization

  * Leadership Team Development

  * Systems for Predictable Growth

  * Valuation Prep and Exit Strategy

✅ Why Work With Me?
25+ years of experience scaling businesses from the inside out:
➡️ Regional CFO, GE Gas Power (LATAM, +1.5GW record year)
➡️ Strategic finance and underwriting leadership at GE Capital
➡️ Business/project development for 8-figure ventures
➡️ Trusted advisor to founders scaling past $10M and beyond

✅ Industries We Specialize In:
✔️ Clean Energy & Decarbonization
✔️ Industrial Goods & B2B Services
✔️ Impact-Driven Companies
✔️ Scaling Coaching & Consulting Firms

🧠 If You're Ready to Scale Intelligently and Sustainably

Let's have a strategic conversation about where you are—and where you can go.

Easiest way to work with me?

Book a 30 min call and let's see if we are a fit.
https://calendly.com/cruzagamboa/call-with-cruz-ascend-30min

Cruz Gamboa

The market tells stories. Your financials & metrics tell truth.

In 2001, Amazon's stock cratered from $113 to $6.

Wall Street declared it dead.

Let's be clear: that had to be terrifying. Even for Bezos.

Watching 95% of your valuation evaporate. Hearing the whispers. Feeling the pressure from every direction.

But here's what separated him from founders who fold in those moments, he kept coming back to his dashboard:

Customer acquisition costs...improving. 

Fulfillment efficiency...improving. 

Contribution margin per unit...improving. 

Defect rates...declining.

The stock price reflected fear. 

The operating metrics reflected reality.

Confidence isn't the absence of fear. It's choosing to trust what you can measure over what you can't control.

This is Financial Intelligence: knowing which numbers actually predict your future, especially when everything around you is screaming that you're losing.

Watch the video. Bezos is calm. 

Not because he wasn't scared, but because he had clarity.

He knew exactly what was true inside his business.

That's how you survive what looks like a reversal, and come out the other side stronger.

That's how $6 becomes $1.7 trillion.

So here's my question for you:

What would it be worth to have that kind of clarity the next time everything feels like it's falling apart?

To know—not hope, not guess—that you're on the right track?

That's the game worth playing.

Check out comments for details

#founder #growth #ceo #scalingup

At 40, he’d lost everything.
His company. His savings. His confidence.
Most people would’ve walked away.

But Aaron Krause wasn’t “most people.”

He went back to the garage.
Back to tiny problems no one cared about.
And from that… came a smiling sponge the world didn’t see coming.

Stores rejected him.
Investors laughed.
The idea sat on a shelf for years.

But he didn’t quit.
He took one uncomfortable shot: Shark Tank.

He walked in with a box of sponges.
He walked out with Lori Greiner.
$200,000 for 20%.
Momentum activated.

Then the episode aired…

Overnight demand.
Shelves cleared out.
Factories overloaded.
Scrub Daddy everywhere, from Walmart to Bed Bath & Beyond.

A simple sponge became a billion-dollar brand.
Not because it was cute.
Because he executed when life said “stop.”

Here’s the truth:

👉 He didn’t need a perfect plan: he needed one more attempt.
👉 He wasn’t chasing validation: he was chasing resilience.
👉 He proved the principle every founder forgets:
A small idea + relentless execution can beat a big idea that never ships.

Critics mocked the smile.
Then watched it become one of Shark Tank’s biggest wins ever.

The ones who win?
They push past rejection.
They build through uncertainty.
They keep going when almost everyone quits.

Because billion-dollar outcomes don’t happen in comfort, 
they happen right after the moment you think it’s over.

#resilience#scalingup#founderstory#entrepreneurship

Stephen Schwarzman built Blackstone into a global giant…
without using calculus.

Why?
Because the game he played didn’t reward equations.

It rewarded judgment, negotiation, and understanding people.

Those were the leverage points.

Charlie Munger said the same thing:

Simple thinking beats complicated math in most investing.

But here’s what most people miss:

It’s not about whether calculus matters.
It’s about whether it matters in the arena you choose.

Private equity = people, decisions, patterns.

Quant trading, derivatives, risk modelling = math, models, precision.

Different games.
Different skills.
Different leverage.

People fail because they try to be good at everything…
and end up great at nothing.

The real move?

👉 Pick the game you want to win.
👉 Identify the skills that game rewards.
👉 Get insanely good at those, and ignore everything else.

That’s how you scale.
Not by doing more.
But by mastering the few things that actually move the needle.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

At 22, he was rejected by Toyota.
At 38, his factory was bombed. Twice.
Most people would’ve accepted defeat.

But Soichiro Honda wasn’t “most people.”

He went back to the workshop.
Back to broken engines and scraps no one wanted.
And from that… came a machine the world didn’t see coming.

Japan had no money.
Fuel was scarce.
Factories were rubble.

But he didn’t quit.
He bolted a tiny motor onto a bicycle 
not pretty, not perfect, but powerful enough to move people again.

Stores ignored it.
Critics dismissed it.
He kept building anyway.

Because he wasn’t chasing applause.
He was chasing motion.

Then came the breakthrough…

The Super Cub.
Light. Reliable. Unbreakable.
The bike that took Japan and then the world by storm.

A simple motorbike became a $100B legacy.
Not because it was glamorous.
Because he refused to stop when everything told him to.

Here’s the truth:

👉 He didn’t need perfect conditions: he needed one more rebuild.
👉 He wasn’t chasing status: he was chasing solutions.
👉 He proved what most innovators forget:
Small beginnings + relentless persistence beat rejection every time.

Toyota turned him down.
Life knocked him down.
But he got back up again and again until the world couldn’t ignore him.

The ones who win?
They rise after failure.
They create after chaos.
They build when everyone else quits.

Because billion-dollar stories don’t start with luck
they start with someone who refuses to give up.
#scalingup #founder #CEO #boston

They emailed eBay 200 times.
eBay ignored every single one.
Most people would’ve given up.

But Marc, Oliver, and Alexander Samwer weren’t “most people.”

They cloned eBay.
Launched it in Germany.
Executed with speed and perfection.
Within months… eBay bought it back for $43 MILLION.

Then the brothers doubled down.
They built Rocket Internet, the company that turned cloning into a billion-dollar machine.

They copied.
They improved.
They scaled.
And they sold again, and again, and again.

Here’s the truth:

👉 They weren’t chasing approval, they were chasing execution at scale.
👉 They didn’t wait to be discovered, they created their own leverage.
👉 They mastered the one principle most founders overlook:
Doing it better beats doing it first.

Critics called them “copycats.”
But behind the noise, the Samwer brothers built an empire worth billions.

Most people stop when they hear “no.”
The one who succeed?
They push when it’s uncomfortable.
They build when others hesitate.
They turn rejection into momentum.

If you want outsized results, do what most won’t:
Step past comfort.
Step past doubt.
Step past fear.

Because the biggest payoffs live right beyond the point where almost everyone quits.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #bostonfounders

He built a dating site that generated exactly zero activity.
No users. No traction. No revenue.

Most leaders call that a failed model.
I call it an early audit.

Three ex-PayPal employees launched “Tune In Hook Up,” expecting market fit.
What they got was silence.
Operational cost? Rising.
User acquisition? Non-existent.
ROI? Negative from day one.

But here’s what mattered:
They reviewed the data instead of reacting to the emotion.

They noticed users trying to upload videos
Not for dating, but for everyday moments.
Unintended behaviour, but real demand.

So they executed the smartest financial move any early-stage team can make:
A low-cost pivot.

Same infrastructure.
Same upload system.
Zero additional burn.
Just a shift in positioning:
Share any video.

And that decision changed their entire valuation trajectory.

Users scaled exponentially.
Cost per acquisition plummeted.
Engagement skyrocketed.
Suddenly, they weren’t running a dating site…
They were running the internet’s first true video platform.

By 2006, their risk profile had flipped
High growth. High virality.
And high legal exposure.

Enter Google.
They offered $1.65B in stock for a business that still had no established monetisation engine.
From a financial lens?
That’s called derisking the future.

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim accepted.
Smart move.
They transferred operational liability…
And secured generational wealth.

Today, YouTube contributes over $40B in yearly ad revenue
and sits at a valuation north of $500B.

All from a product that started as a complete miss 
until the data told a different story.

Lesson:
You don’t scale perfection.
You scale what the market proves it wants.
Listen to the numbers, not the narratives.
And never underestimate the ROI of a well-timed pivot.

#CFOInsights #Leadership #Strategy #Scalingup

She sold her engagement ring for $10,000.
Ten years later, Vicky Tsai built a $500M skincare empire.

Most people call that crazy.
I call it commitment.

She walked away from a six-figure job…
Moved back into her childhood bedroom at 30…
Got rejected for 18 months straight…
And kept going anyway.

1,000 units.
Her last $5,000.
No safety net. No backup plan.

Month one? $2,000 in sales.
Most people quit here.
Vicky didn’t.

She packed every order by hand.
Wrote thank-you notes to strangers.
Built trust one customer at a time.

Then the internet found her.
Demand exploded.
Sephora called.
And the bedroom startup became one of the fastest-growing skincare brands in America.

In 2019, Unilever bought Tatcha for $500 million.
The $10,000 ring she sold?
It turned into 50,000x.

Lesson?
You don’t need permission.
You need conviction.
And the courage to burn Plan B. 

#ceo #founder #growth #scalingup

Strategy & Finance Executive | Scaling Impact-Driven Companies Beyond $10M | Strategic CFO | Certified Scaling Up Advisor

He went to Texas to buy a bank.
He walked out owning a hotel.

Most people would’ve gone home.

Conrad Hilton didn’t.

1919. Cisco, Texas.
Oil boom town. 
Money everywhere.

Hilton arrived with $40,000 and one clear plan.

Buy the local bank.
That was the dream.

He studied the deal for months.
Location checked out.
Customers were guaranteed.

Then the last meeting happened.
The owner doubled the price.
Take it or leave it.

Hilton left. Furious.
Plan A was dead.

That night, he needed a bed.
The only option was the Mobley Hotel.
40 rooms. Run down. Forgettable.

But something didn’t add up.

Every room was full.
Not just full.
Overfull.

Beds were rented in 8-hour shifts.
Same room. Three guests a day.

It wasn’t pretty.
But it worked.

The owner wanted out.
“I’m chasing oil,” he said.

Hilton didn’t see a bad hotel.
He saw demand screaming for supply.

So he did the unthinkable.
He spent his banking money on beds.

$40,000.
Deal closed.

A banker became a hotelier by accident.

He rebuilt everything with one rule.
Minimum cost. Maximum comfort.
Every square foot had to earn.

Profits bought the next hotel.
Then another.
Then another.

Banking faded away.
Hospitality took over.

Years later, he bought the Waldorf Astoria.
From a 40-room flophouse
to the most iconic hotel in the world.

Today?
7,000+ Hilton hotels globally.

Here’s the real lesson:

👉 The rejection wasn’t a setback. It was a redirect.
👉 The failure wasn’t the end. It was the entry point.
👉 He didn’t find his calling by planning harder. He found it by paying attention.

Most people quit when the plan breaks.
Builders look around and ask,
''What’s working?''

Sometimes the wrong deal saves your life.
Sometimes Plan B builds the empire.

Because the stories we admire don’t start with perfect plans
they start with someone who refuses to walk away empty-handed.

#entrepreneurship #founder #businessstories #resilience #scalingup

He got fired.
The company he built said, “We don’t need you anymore.”
Everyone forgot him.

But Steve Jobs didn’t stop.

He poured tens of millions into a failing company called Pixar.
Everyone thought he was crazy.
Most would have quit.

12 years later… that gamble sold for $7.4 BILLION.

Here’s the thing:

👉 He wasn’t chasing money. He was chasing vision.
👉 He embraced risk when others ran from it.
👉 He bet on what he believed in, even when the world said no.

Most people quit right before the payoff.
The real winners? They push through when it’s hardest.
They see opportunity where others see failure.

If you want massive results, you need to do what most won’t.
Step past comfort. Step past doubt. Step past fear.

Because the biggest payoffs live just beyond the point where almost everyone quits.

#scalingup  #growth #ceo

Steve Jobs

He built pole barns to pay for college.

Decades later, John Menard Jr. built Menards, an $18B home improvement empire.

Most people call that luck.

I call it financial discipline.

He opened a small lumber yard in 1964…

Kept prices rock-bottom by building his own factories…

And built every store with cash, not debt.

No investors. No loans. No noise.

While others chased speed and Wall Street, John chose control.

He knew his margins by product line. He tracked cash flow like a pilot tracks altitude. He made the numbers his single source of truth.

Store by store. State by state. Slow, steady, unstoppable.

When 2008 hit, he didn't scramble; he expanded.

Today?

340+ Menards stores. $13B+ revenue. 3rd third-largest home-improvement chain in America. Still 100% private.

The lesson?

You don't need to grow fast. You need to grow right.

That means: 
→ Knowing your profit margins by service line 
→ Tracking cash flow weekly, not just at tax time 
→ Building systems so the business works, not just you

Financial clarity isn't about being a "numbers person."
It's about building simple, repeatable habits that let you scale with confidence.

Have the courage to own every decision, starting with your numbers.
#founder #growth #businessmindset #financialclarity #scalingup

Most people think success comes from working harder, dreaming bigger, or thinking smarter.

Here's the truth: none of that matters if you don't act.

In one simple test, a $50 bill was up for grabs. 

Everyone wanted it. 
Everyone talked about it. 
Everyone wished they had it…

Except Debbie.

She stood up. She walked forward. She took it.

That's it. 

That's the difference between winners and everyone else.

While everyone else burns time and money chasing online strategies that become less effective every day…

The smartest entrepreneurs thriving in 2025 are walking away from their screens and adding an extra 7-figures through live events.

Real humans. In-person communities. High-profit partnerships.

The ultimate advantage in the age of AI isn't replacing humanity with efficiency; it's experiences that are deep, connective, transformative, and profitable.

Getting face-to-face with your ideal clients AND peers is the most consistent solution to the Trust Recession.

I'll be at Event Profit Engine in Austin (December 10-12)...and I still have 4 discounted tickets.

If you're ready to get clarity on the financial blind spots keeping you from scaling, this is your moment.

Don't sit in the room wishing. 

Be Debbie.

P.S. Stop waiting for perfect timing. The money, the deal, the break… it's waiting for the first person who moves. Will it be you? DM me AUSTIN for ticket details.
#scalingup #CEO #founder #growth

Passion isn’t happiness.
It’s pain.
It’s grinding when no one is watching.
It’s suffering through every mistake, every rejection, every late night, just to build something nobody thought was possible.

Jensen Huang didn’t follow the market.
He didn’t wait for AI to be big.
He invested 10,000 engineer-years ahead of demand.
He pivoted Nvidia from graphics chips to AI dominance.
That’s vision. That’s first-principles thinking. That’s suffering smarter than everyone else.

Breakthroughs aren’t born in comfort zones.
They’re born when you refuse to quit, when you embrace the grind, and when you’re willing to suffer today for what the world will celebrate tomorrow.

Extraordinary isn’t given.
It’s earned.
Through struggle.
Through relentless work.
Through being willing to do what everyone else won’t.

If you want to be great, get comfortable being uncomfortable.

#scalingup #growth #ceo #founder

He was dropped at an orphanage at seven.
No food. No money. No choice.

By 14, he was on a factory floor, making metal frames.
One wrong move crushed part of his finger. Permanent injury.

Most people would quit. Most people would settle.
He didn’t.

He watched. He learned.
Every machine. Every process. Every decision.
Night classes. Every penny saved. Knowledge accumulation.

At 26, he opened a tiny eyewear shop in the Italian Alps.
Nothing fancy. No connections. Just him, a few employees, and an obsession with understanding the craft end-to-end.

Most competitors sold parts. He had a different idea: make complete frames. Control the product. Own the market.

By the 1980s, he was making designer frames for fashion houses.
By 1995, he bought LensCrafters—suddenly he controlled both the product and the retail.

Then came Ray-Ban.
Everyone said he overpaid $640 million for a dying brand.
He didn’t see risk. He saw opportunity.

Ray-Ban wasn’t just glasses anymore.
Movies. Celebrities. Fashion statements.
Value multiplied. Brand exploded.

He kept buying. Oakley. Sunglass Hut. Prada. Versace. Chanel. Pearle Vision.
Vertical integration? Check. Market dominance? Check. Monopoly? Almost.

When he died in 2022, Leonardo Del Vecchio had $25.8 billion.
One orphan. One factory worker. One relentless learner.

Lesson:
You don’t need luck. You need mastery, observation, and relentless execution.
Start small. Learn everything. Then own the ecosystem.

#ceo #scalingup #growth #founder

Most founders don't fail because of competition.
 They fail because of the blind spots they never see coming.

Cash looks fine… until it doesn't. Revenue grows… but profit disappears. You hire fast… and spend months fixing mistakes. You work harder… but scale refuses to unlock.

I spent 20+ years at GE Capital navigating these exact challenges at a corporate level.

Closing an $800M+ power plant deal? That taught me cash flow precision. Managing international transactions? That revealed the profit leaks most miss. Building high-performance teams? That showed me the cost of hiring fast vs. hiring right.

Those frameworks didn't just help me lead deals—they gave me the blueprint for scalable growth.

Now I help founders apply these same battle-tested systems to their businesses.

The 7 blind spots in this carousel? They're the ones holding 90% of founders back from predictable, profitable scale.

If you want to go deeper… Download my free ebook in the comments. 

Fix the blind spots. Scale with clarity. Build a business that runs like a pro—because you learned from one.
#scalingup #founder #ceo #growth

7 Blind Spots

𝗛𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮.
𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿.

Most founders know Pinterest.

Almost no one knows Paul Sciarra, the guy who paid early salaries out of his own pocket, skipped taking income, and carried the company when no one else believed.

He wasn’t a “supporter.”
He was the architecture.

And then the quiet part of startup life happened.
Not a blow-up.
Not a fight.
Just… inches.

One meeting he wasn’t invited to.
One decision he didn’t have visibility into.
One board conversation that happened without him.

By the time Pinterest crossed millions of users and raised over $100M…
Paul was out.

He walked away with ~$15M.
Not nothing.
But painful when your original idea becomes a $25B enterprise.

This isn’t a story about betrayal.
It’s a story about leadership, governance, and identity.

𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗱𝗮𝘆.
They lose it when:
 • they stop owning the financial strategy
 • they delegate governance without understanding it
 • they avoid hard conversations
 • they let investors define the path
 • they disconnect from the role of architect

You can build something extraordinary…
and still get written out of your own success if you don’t stay in the seat you were meant to own.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 $𝟯𝗠–$𝟭𝟬𝗠 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻.
The product works.
The company has traction.
Teams are growing.

 But governance, capital strategy, and leadership identity aren’t keeping pace.
That’s the real risk.

𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻:
Your idea can change the world,  but only if you stay in the role of architect as it scales.

Own your equity.
Protect your seat.
Upgrade your thinking.
Build with intention.
The threat isn’t being pushed out.
The threat is drifting out of your power.

𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
 Are you building like the founder…
 or leading like the architect?

#ceo #founder #scalingup #growth

Most founders don’t fail because they’re lazy.
They fail because their goals are small.

Small goals keep you grinding.
Big goals force you to rebuild the system.

When you raise the target to 10x, everything changes:
your strategy, your thinking, your standards, your circle.

You stop playing in the crowded middle
and start operating where very few people dare to go.

10x isn’t harder.

It’s cleaner. 
It’s clearer. 
It’s smarter.

Stop playing safe. Start playing big.

I learned this lesson the hard way.

I wanted to grow my LinkedIn presence to 100K in a year.
I had 2k followers. 

A few people said that it would take years and that I was unrealistic.

Maybe they would have been right - if I'd believed them

I tried anyway. 
I took a course to learn from others who were ahead of me.
I showed up here every day.
Continuously improved my content (and my mindset)
Hired people to help me.

Did I accomplish my goal?
NO. 

I am still at 72k followers today, a year into that challenge.
But I am still grateful for the results. 

Can you imagine what would have happened if I had played small?
I may be at 15K followers at best. 

And that's the whole point. 

Even if you miss the 10X mark, it beats linear thinking. 

This same principle is why I help founders identify the 7 financial blind spots killing their scale - because small thinking about money keeps you grinding, while 10x financial clarity forces you to rebuild the system.

Want to apply 10x thinking to your finances? 

I've identified the 7 blind spots most founders miss. 

Download the guide; link is in the comments. 

#founder #ceo #growth #scalingup

10X Thinking = 10 X Results

He started with $5,000 and a pizza shop paycheck.
Nobody cared. Nobody believed.

Most people would’ve stayed broke.

Dan Gilbert didn’t.

He looked at a broken mortgage industry slow, complex, full of middlemen and said: “There’s a better way.”

He worked 18 hours a day. Seven days a week.
He studied every inefficiency.
He simplified the impossible.
He moved online when the internet was “just a fad.”
He ignored the naysayers.

It all started with Rock Financial. 
And eventually
Rock Financial became Quicken Loans.
Applications went from weeks to minutes.
Rates went from hidden to transparent.
Customers went from frustrated to obsessed.

Then he didn’t stop.
He bought the Cleveland Cavaliers, poured money into the city, and turned it upside down.
Downtown boomed. 
The team won a championship. 
The city transformed.

Here’s the lesson most people miss:

👉 You don’t need a perfect idea.
👉 You don’t need permission.
👉 You need to see broken systems, fix them better, and move faster than everyone else.
👉 And then, reinvest the wins into something that actually matters.

From pizza shifts to $28.5B, Gilbert’s story isn’t luck.
It’s obsession, timing, and execution.

Most people quit at “too hard.”
The few who succeed? 
They see the gap, go first, and keep building while others sleep.

If you want outsized results, do what most won’t:
Step past the “impossible.”
Step past the doubters.
Step past comfort.

Because fortune isn’t at the starting line, it’s at the point where everyone else stops.

#growth #scalingup #entrepreneurship #CEO #execution

Most founders grind hard for years… and never hit $10M.

Here’s the brutal truth: it’s not about working harder. It’s about thinking differently.

The founders who scale don’t chase approval. They hunt reality.
They don’t run the machine they build the machine.

They don’t wait for perfect conditions, they turn constraints into leverage.

Scaling isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing the few things that actually move the needle.
It’s about creating systems that work without your mood, decisions that multiply impact, and alignment that accelerates everything.

You can keep grinding, or you can flip the mindset switches that separate founders who stall from founders who explode past $10M.

Which one are you?

#scalingup #founder #ceo

He bought a bankrupt textile factory for $15 million.
Forty years later, Bernard Arnault built a $500B luxury empire.

Most people call that impossible.
I call it vision.

He didn’t invent anything.
He didn’t design a product.
He didn’t chase trends.
He just saw what others couldn’t.

Buried inside that dying company was a forgotten gem: Christian Dior.
Everyone overlooked it.
Arnault didn’t.

He sold everything except Dior.
Bet the house on one iconic brand.
And rebuilt from zero.

Then he made an even crazier move
He went after LVMH.
Louis Vuitton. Moët. Hennessy.
The crown jewels of French luxury.

The elite hated it.
The media mocked it.
It was the most hostile takeover France had ever seen.
Arnault didn’t blink.

He bought the shares quietly.
Took control boldly.
And turned LVMH into a global machine.

One acquisition at a time.
Fendi. Tiffany. Givenchy. Sephora.
Dozens of brands reborn under one ruthless strategy:

Let creators dream.
But keep the business razor sharp.

While tech giants chased disruption…
Arnault chased timelessness.

While others discounted…
He raised value.

In 2023, he became the richest man on Earth.
Quiet. Precise. Unshakeable.
He outplayed every tech titan without writing a single line of code.

Lesson?
You don’t need to invent.
You need to see the hidden gem
And have the courage to bet everything on it.

#entrepreneur #growth #businessstrategy #founder #scalingup

While everyone's fighting over TVs today, I'm fighting for your 2026.

One stage does what 6 months of content can't.

That's why I'm speaking in Austin December 10-12.

Here's what I've learned:

You can spend hundreds of hours posting content, cold DMing event hosts, vetting podcast opportunities, and hoping something sticks...

Or you can walk into one room where the work is already done.

That's Event Profit Engine.

Hosted by Alex Moscow ($130M in client results) and Eben Pagan (built 10 seven-figure companies, 3 over eight figures).

200 founders doing $500K-$2M+ in one room.

The kind of people you'd normally pay $25K to join a mastermind just to meet.

But this isn't networking. It's deal flow.

On Day 3, they run facilitated sessions where they literally pair you with:

→ High-caliber stages for 2026 
→ Aligned promotional partners 
→ Sponsors for your events (I am one of the sponsors for this event)

Not "hope you meet someone cool at the cocktail hour."

Strategic. Intentional. Partnerships that lead to revenue.

The stages you actually want to be on in 2026? They're in this room. The relationships that would take 6 months to build? Done in 3 days.

I'll be speaking on why most founders are operationally excellent but financially blind—and how to fix it.

This is for you if:
→ You're a founder doing $1M-$10M 
→ You want stages and partnerships locked in for 2026 
→ You're tired of cold outreach that goes nowhere 
→ You'd rather be in the right room than grind online for 6 more months

This is NOT for you if:
→ You're just getting started (under $500K) 
→ You're not ready to invest in growth 
→ You think "networking" means collecting business cards

Here's my Black Friday deal for you:

$1K tickets (normally $4K, goes to $5K on Monday).

I only have a few left. First come, first served.

You can fish with a pole for the next 6 months.

Or you can grab a net and walk into this room.

Comment "AUSTIN" or DM me and I'll send you the code before they're gone.
This is the only deal worth buying today.

See you in Texas.
#scalingup #CEO #founder #growth

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The Battle

Archita Fritz

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The Battle

Archita Fritz

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Archita Fritz's LinkedIn Performance

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