Helping professionals launch another income stream in 2024. Click + Follow for posts and articles on business.

I work as a senior digital adviser and strategic sounding board for founders and entrepreneurs building online.My role isn’t to provide formulas, playbooks, or constant direction. Instead, I help people think more clearly about ideas, business models, and decisions — drawing on perspective shaped over decades of working across multiple internet cycles, from early email and web, through mobile, marketplaces, performance marketing, and now AI.Alongside this work, I write and research the business game — an ongoing exploration of how business actually works in practice: incentives, timing, leverage, and why many people lose by copying what looks successful without understanding the rules underneath.Some of this thinking is tested in public through a small working lab called Strategy with Danny, where founders pressure-test one clear offer and learn what actually converts before they scale systems, teams, or platforms.I’m not a coach or a traditional consultant, and I’m not embedded in execution. This work is best suited to independent founders who want a calm, experienced perspective to pressure-test ideas, spot risks early, and avoid scaling the wrong thing at the wrong time.Most of my value comes from pattern recognition, context, and judgment — helping reduce noise, fragility, and unnecessary complexity in how businesses are built.

Danny Mallinder

No Profit is the most important metric in business.

But it’s also a terrible North Star.

Not because money doesn’t matter.
It does.

But because profit often hides the real problem.

You can be profitable 
and still lose motivation.

You can “make it work”
while slowly draining momentum.

When founders say the business isn’t working, it’s rarely a money issue first.

It’s usually something earlier.
Something quieter.

I wrote a short essay on this today, on why profit points backward, and what to look at instead.

If you’re building a business and it feels heavier than it should you might find this useful.

https://lnkd.in/erm-aJkx

#businessgame
#founderthinking
#buildinginpublic

Helping entrepreneurs and founders with business development. Strategy & direction. Creator of ‘The Business Game’ newsletter.

Mexico headlines spark fear.
But they don’t change strategy.

Most founders think they are rational.
Until emotion spikes.

One headline.
One bad week.
One loud opinion.

And they pivot.

I live part of the year in Mexico.
Recent news did not move me.

Because the decision was built on alignment.
Not reaction.

- strategy beats sentiment
- alignment beats urgency
- data beats drama

Overreaction kills momentum.
Calm thinking compounds.

Full essay below - 

https://lnkd.in/edKwMUpP

#founders
#businessstrategy
#clarity

Founders stuck in sales fail.
Your close rate proves it.

If your close rate is up and down,
you do not have a persuasion problem.

You have a broken architecture.

If you are stuck in sales
trying to force it to work,

that is not a closing issue.

It is a system that was never engineered.

Close rate is a diagnostic signal.

If it is unstable,
your architecture is unstable.

The answer is not a script.
It is a system.

In 5 months:

$500k+ closed
Close rate from 23% to 47%
Founder out of the sales seat

Not a confidence upgrade.

An architectural rebuild.

If your close rate fluctuates,
are you fixing yourself
or fixing the system?

#founders
#salesarchitecture
#gtmstrategy

Your Sales Team Isn’t Broken. Your System Is.

If you're a founder, CEO, or sales leader still stuck in the weeds, chasing deals, or cleaning up after underperformers—it's not a "sales talent" issue.

You don’t have a repeatable sales system.

Here’s what I see every day:
❌ Sales is reliant on a few “closers” instead of a scalable team
❌ Training is disconnected from daily execution
❌ Forecasts feel like fiction—and reps aren’t held accountable
❌ Founders still carry the pipeline because the team can’t

That’s why I built the SmartScale 90 System™️ (S90™️)—a sales infrastructure built for scale.

We don’t "train" salespeople.
We install the system that makes sales consistent, coachable, and scalable.

🚀 What We Deliver

✅ 300% increase in win rates
✅ 20–30% higher rep productivity
✅ Strategic hiring and onboarding that sticks
✅ CEO out of sales—team into action

I’ve helped companies from early-stage to $1B+ build sales organizations that drive growth without guesswork.

👊 Ready to build a sales team that performs with or without you?

🔗 Book a strategy session: https://calendly.com/ken-lundin/linkedin-intro

#RevHeat #SalesOperatingSystem #FounderLedSales #SalesLeadership #ScaleSales #SalesTrainingThatWorks #B2BSales

Ken Lundin

Today is Valentine’s Day.

But for a long time, I treated my business as my only Valentine.

I fell into the "After" Trap:
“After this quarter.”
“After this launch.”
“After things calm down.”

The truth? They never do.

I chose “after” once.

It cost me more than just money.
It cost me my house. My business. Years of my life.

We often sacrifice the people we love at the altar of "eventual" success.

But here is the uncomfortable truth I learned the hard way:
𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗲.

The things you postpone for success - health, relationships, presence...
are actually the things that make your success sustainable.

When your personal life is a wreck, your decision-making suffers.

When your relationships are neglected, your "why" disappears.

Take care of your life so you have the strength to take care of your company.

This Saturday, put the phone down.

Spend time with the people who were there before the "founder" title
and will be there long after it.

The best founders don’t wait for a holiday to show up for their loved ones.

They architect a life that fuels their business, not one that is consumed by it.

Founder @ RevHeat• $1B+ Closed | $4B+ in Client Exits • Scaled Clients From $3 to $18M in 18 Months, & $10 to $60M, $98 to 420M • 4 Unicorns • Bootstrapped to $78 Million • Sales Systems That End Founder Burnout

No alternative text description for this image

Here’s what nobody tells you about “being indispensable.”

It feels heroic.
It feels responsible.
It feels like leadership.

It’s none of those things.

If every decision routes through you…
If deals stall when you’re on vacation…
If your team waits instead of acts…

𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴.
You’re clogging the system.

I’ve seen this movie a thousand times.

Founders hit $5M–$12M and mistake involvement for control.
Then growth slows. Stress spikes. And the business becomes a very expensive job.

The 1% build companies that answer questions without them.
The 99% stay busy being the answer.

Busy isn’t the same as built.

If you disappeared for two weeks, would your business improve, stall, or break?

That answer tells you exactly what to build next.

Your middle managers might be your biggest money leak.

Every time you roll out a new process, training, or initiative...
you gather everyone in a room, share the why, share the what...
and then nothing actually changes.

Because knowing isn't doing.

The missing piece?

Holding your middle managers accountable
for how they drive that change with their teams.

Not just attending the meeting - owning the outcome.

Without that structured layer of accountability,
every dollar you invest in growth is just a slow burn.

The businesses that scale aren't the ones with the best ideas.

They're the ones that actually execute them.

So I'm curious, how do you hold your middle managers accountable for change?

Drop it in the comments 👇

Passed by an abandoned Sears this morning. One of America's biggest retailers... now a parking lot full of trash and grocery carts.

The lesson? It doesn't matter how dominant you are. The moment you stop obsessing over your customer and get complacent, you're vulnerable.

Question for you: Where are you taking your market position for granted right now?

Don't let this be your story.

Less than 1% of companies ever break $10M.

And it’s not because the other 99% are lazy.

Here’s what nobody tells you about the $10M ceiling:
it has almost nothing to do with your product.

I’ve worked with 150+ CEOs.
I’ve seen companies go from $2M to $78M.
I’ve also stood on my porch in 2011 while a stranger told me he bought my house.

Different stages. Same lesson.

Revenue hides structural cracks.

At $3M, your heroics cover the gaps.
At $8M, your calendar is the system.
At $12M, everything starts to shake.

You think you need:
– More leads
– Better reps
– A stronger VP of Sales

But here’s the deal.

If your forecast swings 30% every quarter…
If pipeline reviews don’t happen unless you run them…
If your best rep is a single point of failure…

You don’t have a sales problem.

You have an infrastructure problem.

Infrastructure breaks in silence. Revenue breaks in public.

The founders who stay stuck keep asking, “How do I close more deals?”

The ones who break through ask, “What do I need to build so this works without me?”

That’s the shift from operator to architect.

Busy isn’t the same as built.

And growth that depends on you isn’t scale. It’s a ceiling waiting to hit you.

Stop operating.

Start architecting.

Avoiding hard conversations isn't keeping the peace.
It's keeping you small.

Most business owners wait until someone needs a performance plan or a pink slip before they say anything.

But that moment didn't start last week - it started 3 months ago when you let the first small thing slide.

One redirecting conversation early on could've fixed what now feels like a massive problem.

So here's your new Thursday habit:
Ask yourself - "Did I have the hard conversation I avoided this week?"

Then give yourself 24 hours to close it out.

The bottom of your workforce should not be setting the ceiling for your company's growth.

Stop playing small. Start talking.

91% of sales teams are lying to themselves.

Most founders think they have a revenue forecast.

What they actually have is "hope" wearing a spreadsheet costume.

If your sales rep’s best metric is that a deal "feels good," you don’t have a pipeline.
You have a fantasy.

You sit in the QBR.
You ask, “How’s the pipeline?”

Your rep says, “It feels good.”

Feels.

Based on what?

No exit criteria.
No historical conversion by stage.
No definition of what “qualified” actually means.

So every deal becomes a motivational speech.

Here’s the interesting thing…

The top 1% don’t have better markets.
They don’t have magic reps.

They have math.

They know:

Stage 2 → Stage 3 converts at 47%

Average sales cycle is 62 days

Deals without economic buyer identified close 8% of the time

So when they forecast, it’s boring.

And boring is profitable.

Hope is the most expensive strategy in business.

Because when you miss, you overhire.
You discount.
You panic.

Now you’re managing cash instead of building a company.

If your forecast swings more than 20% quarter to quarter, that’s not market volatility.

That’s a systems problem.

Fix your stages.
Define exit criteria.
Measure conversion.
Kill fantasy pipeline early.

Revenue is a lagging indicator.

Your forecast tells me everything about your infrastructure.

Hope doesn’t scale.

Math does.

You hit $12M. Then $18M. Maybe even $25M.
The top line looks healthy, so you assume the business is, too.

But underneath the surface? 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴.

I’ve seen companies double their revenue while their forecast accuracy plummeted, their churn quietly crept up, and their new hires took 6 months to do a 2-month job.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵:
Revenue is loud.
Infrastructure is silent.

Infrastructure breaks in silence. Revenue breaks in public.

You don’t go bankrupt just because the cash runs out. You go bankrupt when your systems can’t handle the complexity you’ve built.

More deals.

More customers.

More people.

But if it’s still the same "tribal knowledge" and the same founder in every single meeting—the math will eventually fail you.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗺𝘂𝘀 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁:
If your revenue doubled tomorrow, would your systems hold?
Or would the cracks just spread faster?

The 99% celebrate the spikes.
The 1% stress-test the foundation.

They know something most owners don’t:
𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲. 𝗢𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁.

Revenue is a lagging indicator.
Infrastructure is the predictor.

Your ceiling isn't a dollar amount.
𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂.

If you can’t step away without everything falling apart, 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 - 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀.

Less than 1% of companies break $10M because the founder dependency isn’t fixed. Infrastructure scales, heroics don’t.

If your kids are afraid to interrupt you, you built it wrong.

I’m going to be real with you…

You can hit $20M and still lose at home.

I’ve seen it.

I’ve lived parts of it.

Revenue is loud.

Regret is quiet.

Most founders tell themselves:

“I’m doing this for my family.”

But your family doesn’t experience revenue.

They experience you.

The distracted version.
The exhausted version.
The short-tempered version.

You don’t have to choose between scale and presence.

But you do have to build differently.

Systems buy back time.

Time buys back relationships.

That’s the real exit.

If you disappeared for 14 days, would your business improve or panic?

That question makes most founders uncomfortable.
Good. It should.

If deals stall when you’re gone, you’re not leading.
You’re propping things up.

Founder dependency feels heroic early on.
Later, it becomes the bottleneck that quietly caps growth.

The 1% build companies that answer questions without them.
The 99% stay on every call and call it leadership.

Infrastructure breaks in silence.
Revenue breaks in public.

So let me tell you a pattern I see over and over.

Founders say they want freedom.
Then they build businesses that punish them for leaving.

No vacation.
No shut-off.
No margin for life.

That’s not ambition.
That’s a design flaw.

Freedom isn’t a perk you earn later.
It’s a system you build early.

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝗮𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻.

You don’t need more hustle.
You need a company that doesn’t require heroics.

That’s the whole point.

The player-coach model is a joke.

YOU CANNOT:
close deals,
coach reps,
build systems,
run forecasts,
and scale a company
at the SAME TIME.

Pick one.
Everything else suffers.

I’ve seen this hundreds of times:

Great closer becomes CEO.
Revenue grows.
Chaos grows faster.

The best closers make the worst CEOs.
Different skills. Different job.

If you’re still the hero in the story, the story ends early.

Your forecast isn’t wrong.
It’s fictional.

Most forecasts are hope wearing a spreadsheet costume.

No exit criteria.
No historical conversion rates.
Just gut feel and optimism.

That’s not forecasting.
That’s guessing with math fonts.

The 1% don’t predict revenue.
They design predictability.

Hope is not a forecast methodology.

Most founders think they’re the President.

You’re not.

You’re the Constitution.

Here’s what nobody tells you about Washington’s Birthday…

George Washington stepping down was the real power move.

He didn’t cling to control.
He built a system that outlived him.

That’s leadership.

Most founders:

• Approve every deal
• Sit in every sales call
• Run every forecast
• Sign off on every hire

That’s not leadership.

That’s dependency disguised as importance.

And here’s the deal…

If your company collapses when you step away, you didn’t build a business.

You built a throne.

The greatest leaders build something that works without them.

Can your company survive your absence?

Or is it addicted to it?

Stop playing small.

You’re winning the business when you get in front of people... but you aren’t getting in front of enough people.

The "messy middle" is a choice. You can stay stuck between $8M–$14M like everyone else, or you can start focusing on the variables you actually control.

Being the best ≠ being the best known.

Which one are you prioritizing right now? Let’s talk in the comments.

Less than 1% of companies ever break $10M.

It’s not a hustle problem. It’s an architecture problem.

Here’s what nobody tells you about the $10M ceiling…

Revenue can grow faster than infrastructure.

And when it does, you don’t feel it at first.

Sales are up. New logos coming in. You’re hiring. Everyone’s busy.

But here’s the deal.

Infrastructure breaks in silence. Revenue breaks in public.

The founder still runs pipeline.
The forecast is still gut feel wearing a spreadsheet costume.
New hires “shadow someone” and hope it works.
Your best rep is carrying 40% of the number.

You think you have momentum.

What you actually have is duct tape.

I’ve seen this movie 150+ times.

Company hits $8M.
Pushes to $12M.
Chaos explodes.
Margins shrink.
Turnover spikes.
Founder works more than ever.

They didn’t grow too fast.

They skipped a stage.

You can’t go from founder-led chaos to $20M without building structure:

Clear stage definitions with exit criteria.
A real hiring system, not “I liked their energy.”
Weekly data-driven 1:1s.
Proof that your results are repeatable.

Miss one pillar, you struggle.
Miss two, you stall.

The 99% respond to growth by working harder.

The 1% respond by building smarter.

Growth shouldn’t make your life harder.

If it is, you’re scaling revenue.
Not infrastructure.

And infrastructure always wins that fight.

I’m going to be real with you.

You can’t:
👉🏼 Close deals
👉🏼 Coach reps
👉🏼 Run forecasts
👉🏼 Build systems
👉🏼 Lead leaders

❌ And do all of it well.

Yet founders keep trying.

The best closers make the worst CEOs.
Not because they aren’t smart.
𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗷𝗼𝗯𝘀.

Operators keep the machine running.
Architects build the machine.

Every hour you stay in player mode is an hour the business stays dependent on you.

If your leadership team needs you in every meeting...
you didn’t hire leaders.

You hired helpers.

And helpers don’t scale companies.

Your stress isn’t from growth.

It’s from unpredictability.

There’s a difference.

When your forecast swings 30% quarter to quarter…

When you don’t know which deals are real…

When payroll depends on “this one big close”…

That’s not ambition.

That’s volatility.

Hope is not a forecast methodology.

The top 10% of sellers are 740% better at closing.

That gap isn’t hustle.

It’s process.

Fix the machine.

Your nervous system will thank you.

Stop hiring more salespeople to fix a revenue leak.

It’s the most expensive mistake I see business owners make.
You think more "boots on the ground" equals more closed deals.

In reality? You’re just paying more people to do the wrong thing faster.

The Math of Scaling Mediocrity:
I’ve analyzed 12,744 salespeople.
The top 10% are 740% better at closing than the bottom 10%.
Not 74%. 740%.

If your sales process is weak,
hiring doesn’t scale your success.
It magnifies your weakness.

Most companies I consult with don’t have a "people problem."
They have a system problem.

👉🏼 No clear exit criteria by stage.

👉🏼 A "vague" Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

👉🏼 Zero historical conversion data.

The result?

Your reps "work hard,
the pipeline looks "full,"
but the bank account stays the same.

Hope is not a forecast methodology.

If you want growth that doesn't break, do this first:

✅ Audit stage-by-stage conversion (find the leak).

✅ Define non-negotiable exit criteria (stop chasing ghosts).

✅ Train to the gaps, not the symptoms.

Fix the machine before you add the fuel.

Infrastructure breaks in silence. Revenue breaks in public.

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