Eric Feng

Top Voice | I help trainers, coaches & entrepreneurs get paid to speak

For a long time, I did everything “right.”

Built a personal brand. Spoke on global stages. Hit milestone after milestone.

But somewhere along the way, I lost myself behind the image.

The pressure to perform. The constant proving. The silent burnout.

After a health scare in 2025, I made a quiet decision.

I still want to scale my business and influence but not at the expense of my soul.

I haven’t figured it all out yet.
But I’m building differently now.
And I’m using this space to document the journey.

If you’re a high achiever who’s starting to question the old definition of success…

If you’re ambitious but tired of hustling on empty…

If you're craving more peace, purpose, and meaning in how you build your businesses...

You’re not alone.
Let's walk this out together.

Content Creator

With 200K+ following on Facebook and 51K on Instagram, I have been using these platforms to share my knowledge on sales, marketing and branding. Target audience are service professionals who market directly to consumers (B2C).

Eric Feng (CSP) - Global Speaker

I walked away from a career I spent 20 years building without knowing what would replace it.

That’s what “willing” looked like for me.

When I was told that my REAL mission wasn’t branding or professional speaking even though I was good at it, I was asked one simple question:

“Now that you’re aware of your 天命… are you willing?”

My deeper work, I was told, is to awaken people.
To raise their consciousness.
To build platforms and systems that help others fulfill their own calling.

I didn’t fully understand how.

But I said yes.

And “yes” meant action.

I deleted 7 years of social media content.
I stepped away from my professional speaking path.
I ended old business partnerships.

I did all this with no backup plan, no guaranteed next move and nothing to fall back on.

Just trust.

I was told that if I stepped into what I was supposed to do, the help I needed would come.

A month later, an ex-university classmate I hadn’t spoken to in almost twenty years reached out.

We met.

Weeks later, I found myself in Fukuoka meeting Marie Kondo, the globally renowned tidying expert behind the Netflix series Tidying Up, followed by over 4 million people worldwide.

She and her husband were building the Joy Movement.
And I was invited to be part of the core team.

Completely aligned!

Awakening people.
Spreading joy.
Building something larger than myself.

And then more “miracles” followed which will be more stories for another day.

But here’s what really changed for me the day I decided to do what I am supposed to do on earth.

Conviction returned.
Flow returned.
Joy returned.

Not because life became easy (newsflash: I still have my challenges)

But because I stopped building a life that wasn’t truly mine.

Looking back, the stagnation, the dissatisfaction, even the six-figure scam, they weren’t punishment.

They were redirection.

If you are 天命人, you cannot sustainably play small.
Eventually, life will disrupt what is comfortable.

And in a Fire Horse year, known for intensity, bold shifts, and forcing change, misalignment doesn’t stay hidden for long.

So please don't wait for life to force your hand. 

If you know you’re 天命人, this is your line in the sand.

Step into your bigger mission!

Comment “READY.”
And watch what moves toward you when you do.

#innerwork #awakeningachiever #天命人

Documenting my journey of scaling without losing my soul

Things that don’t matter in your 30s
(from a 45-year-old who has been there).

I just turned 45.

If I could speak to my 30-year-old self, here’s what I would say:
There are five things that don’t matter as much as you think.

1. Being popular.

Popularity is flaky at best. It comes and goes depending on your success, your relevance, your usefulness. The moment something goes wrong, watch how quickly praise turns into distance or worse, gossip. And the more popular you become, the more jealousy you attract. You don’t need that distraction when you’re still building.

2. Being right all the time.

You don’t have to win every argument just to feel good about yourself. Most people don’t change their minds because you argue better. Pride gets in the way. All you do is drain energy and risk damaging relationships you may need later. Sometimes it’s wiser to stay silent and let results speak.

3. Avoiding failure to protect your ego.

Your 30s are the best time to make mistakes. This is where you gain real experience, the kind that prepares you for bigger responsibilities later. Don’t let early success make you play safe. In your 30s, you’re still allowed to experiment. That window doesn’t last forever.

4. Keeping up with lifestyle inflation.

When income increases, lifestyle often follows immediately - luxury condo, sports car, branded everything. It feels like progress. But many people in their 30s are upgrading expenses, not building wealth. They look successful but are financially fragile. Freedom in your 40s and 50s depends on discipline in your 30s. Invest. Build assets. Create options. Image impresses strangers. Assets protect your future.

5. Trying to figure everything out.

There’s pressure in your 30s to “have it together.” Career path. Marriage. Kids. Investments. Five-year plan. Ten-year plan. But you are going to live a long life. Your 30s are just one chapter. Don’t rush to appear settled and lose the joy of discovery.

And stop asking everyone how you should live your life. Most people project their own fears and regrets onto you even if they mean well.

Your 30s are for building useful skills. Gaining real experiences. Expanding your network. Accumulating resources. And most importantly, getting to know yourself - your strengths, your weaknesses, your values, your purpose.

Because when you reach your 40s, you don’t want to still be experimenting with identity. You want to spend the next decade building something aligned with who you truly are, not who you were trying to impress.

If you could give your 30-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Photo on left: Me in my 30s
Photo on right: Me in my 40s

#lifeinyour30s #lessonslearned

At 35, she lost all her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.

What happened next changed her life - and the lives of thousands of professionals she now helps.

This International Women’s Day, I want to spotlight Xi Ren Yang, one of the speakers we groom at Experts in Asia.

At the time, Xi Ren was a successful HR leader.

From the outside, everything looked fine.

But the intense stress she had been carrying eventually triggered Alopecia, causing her to lose all her hair.

That experience became a turning point.

Instead of hiding, she chose to rebuild her life around a new mission: helping professionals manage stress, build resilience, and thrive - not just survive.

Today, Xi Ren is an award-winning consultant and keynote speaker whose sessions have helped 80%+ of participants reduce stress within just one hour using her CARE Framework.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing her on the #ExpertsInAsia podcast, where she shared how leaders and organisations can build resilient teams in today’s high-pressure world.

If you’d like to watch the full podcast interview, DM me and I’ll send it to you.

Happy (belated) International Women’s Day to all the women who turn adversity into purpose!

#InternationalWomensDay #IWD2026

Last August, someone I trusted said to me, "Eric, your time is running out.’”

Not in a dying way.
But in a destiny way.

Let me explain.

Many of us (you too!) are born with a God-given mission.

No, it may not be your current career. 
And no, it is also not some role that our society rewards.

It is a unique task that only you can fulfill in this lifetime.

Think about every hero story:

Neo in The Matrix. 
Moses. 
Even characters like Naruto or Luffy.

They were different.
They didn’t fully fit in.
And they were all called to something bigger.

They are all people with a calling (or in mandarin, we say 天命人).

Now here’s the part people don’t talk about.

If you don’t use your gifts for what they were meant for, they get taken away.

It’s like the Parable of the Talents in the Bible.
The servant who buried his gift lost it.
The ones who used theirs were given more.

Back to my story.

When I met Huiteng (who can read into people's life missions), she told me, "Eric, you are good at branding and speaking. But you are not using your gifts for what they were actually given to you for.”

That hit. 

I was succeeding.
But I didn’t feel fulfilled.

There was always this feeling… like something was missing, but I couldn’t name it.

Then she said something really drastic, “If you don’t step into your real mission, life will disrupt what is comfortable until you do.”

It already did for almost two years.

I lost passion for the work I used to love.
Money didn’t come as easily as before.
Problems in my professional and personal life started stacking up.
I even got scammed six figures.

Looking back, I realize it wasn’t punishment.
It was redirection.

So if you too have been feeling stuck, restless or things keep falling apart for no clear reason…

Maybe you’re not unlucky.
Maybe you’re just misaligned.

And life is trying to move you toward what you were actually meant to do.

In my next post, I’ll share the clear signs that you might be called for a greater purpose i.e. 天命人.

For now, tell me, "Have you ever felt like you were meant for more, but couldn’t explain why?"

Pic: Huiteng (extreme left) who can read into people's life missions. 

#innerwork #awakeningachiever #天命人

Why do hateful comments hurt more on some days than others?

I recently came across an old interview with Anne Hathaway (video below) where she spoke about dealing with online hate.

At first, she was deeply affected by the criticism.
Later, she realised why.

Because she hadn’t learned to fully love herself yet.

In her words: “If you don’t love yourself, when someone says horrible things, a part of you is always going to believe them.”

That line stayed with me which inspired this morning's post. 

Hate only lands where there is a "soft spot".

If someone insults you about something you’re completely secure in, it barely registers.

But if they touch an insecurity you already carry, even lightly, it stings.

For example, if someone calls me “fat,” it wouldn’t affect me. I know it’s not true. And even if it were, weight has never been my insecurity.

But if someone commented on my hairline a year ago?

That would have hurt because that was something I had been insecure about for a long time.

Now that I’ve addressed it and feel secure about it, the same comment wouldn’t land the same way.

This is why inner work is so important! 

Not to silence your critics.
But to strengthen the parts of you that still feel fragile.

So the next time you receive a criticism that affects you, instead of asking, “How do I shut them up?”

Ask, “Why did that affect me?”

That question will change more than any argument ever will.

Watch Anne’s clip below.
It explains this far better than I can.

And after you watch the clip below, share with me one criticism that used to affect you but no longer does.

#haters #AnneHathaway #innerwork

5 Signs You’re Not Meant For An Ordinary Life
(You might be 天命人)

Pay attention to the final sign.

1. You never fully felt like you belong.

Even when you fit in, you feel slightly different.
Like you’re observing the world more than blending into it.

You can function in society.
But deep down, you know you’re not here to just fit in.

2. Your life has been unusually hard.

Not normal challenges.
But intense seasons. Pressure. Loss. Setbacks.
Almost like you’ve been trained through adversity.

3. Success doesn’t fully satisfy you.

Even when things look good.
Even when others think you’ve made it.

There’s still a quiet voice saying,
“Something is still missing.”

4. You have natural abilities you can’t explain.

You read people easily.
You sense energy shifts instantly.
People trust you quickly.
Your words carry unusual weight.
Things that feel normal to you but don’t to others.

5. You can’t get away with playing small.

When you settle for superficial success…

Energy drains.
Flow slows.
Things fall apart.

Ordinary success feels empty.

If these signs resonate with you, you might be 天命人: someone called to a bigger purpose.

But here’s the part no one tells you.

If you don’t use your God-given gifts for your REAL mission…

Passion drops.
Flow slows.
Disruptions increase.
Things stop feeling smooth.
Dissatisfaction grows.

Rest assured, it's not punishment.
It’s a wake-up call.

If you’re serious about finding out whether you are 天命人, don’t just scroll past this.

Comment “ME.”

Let’s confirm it!

#innerwork #awakeningachiever #天命人

How do you deal with haters... without losing your peace?

Let’s be honest.

Being talked about behind your back hurts.
Especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.

But inner work can change how you interpret it.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the years of dealing with my haters (and gossipers).

1. When they criticise you, it reveals more about them than you. 

When someone speaks negatively about you, it often reveals their insecurity more than your identity. What sounds like an attack may actually be envy, fear, comparison, or unresolved pain speaking.

Before you absorb it as truth, ask yourself: Is this really about me… or their unresolved pain?

2. Not everyone deserves your defence.

If someone chooses to talk ABOUT you instead of TO you, that tells you something about their maturity.

People who value truth will come to you for clarification.
People who value drama will gather an audience.

Before you rush to explain yourself, ask: Is this a conversation worth having or just noise not worth entering?

3. Your trigger is your teacher.

If their words sting deeply, pause.

Strong reactions often point to something tender inside you. Sometimes criticism hurts because it touches an insecurity that hasn’t fully healed.

Before blaming them, ask: What part of me still needs assurance or growth?

4. Protect your energy, not your image.

Trying to control how everyone sees you will exhaust you. In fact, the more you chase acceptance, the more power you give away (to them).

Reputation lives in other people’s minds.
Character lives in your daily actions.

Before defending your name in future, ask: Am I protecting my reputation… or my peace?

5. Let your integrity outlast the noise.

You cannot out-talk gossip. But you can outgrow it.

Consistency exposes exaggeration.
Time exposes truth.

Before responding, ask: Will this matter in a year or is my ego just uncomfortable today?

The truth is no one truly “hates” you.

They are just reacting to what you represent, what you trigger, or what they haven’t resolved in themselves.

So instead of silencing your critics, you are better of learning how to master your response to your critics.

While we are on this topic, what is your personal rule when dealing with criticism or gossip?

#haters #innerwork

Some of the most successful people I know are deeply unfulfilled.
Not because they failed.

But because they succeeded at the wrong thing.

Career is going well.
Income is stable.
People around them think they’ve “made it”.

Yet there’s a quiet feeling inside that refuses to go away:
“This can’t be all I’m here for.”

If you’ve ever felt this, you’re not alone!

A few days ago someone asked me a question many people secretly are asking too: “How do you know if there’s something bigger you’re meant to do?”

From what I’ve seen, clarity about your deeper calling usually comes in two ways.

1. Honest conversations with yourself

Questions most people avoid:
- If money wasn’t an issue, what would I actually want to do with my life?
- If my life were a movie, what story would I want it to tell?

These questions sound simple.

But when answered honestly, they reveal what your soul actually cares about.

2. The right guidance

Sometimes we need someone who can see what we cannot see ourselves.

Not someone who decides our path.

But someone who can help reveal:
- your natural gifts
- your patterns
- the direction your life energy seems to be moving toward

Even then, clarity rarely arrives all at once.

It grows through movement.

The only thing you really need at the start is WILLINGNESS!

The willingness to move when you feel the pull.

And the COURAGE to take the first step before everything makes sense.

Each step then becomes feedback.

You ask yourself:
- Did this make me feel alive?
- Did this create something meaningful for others?

If yes, you keep moving.

Even setbacks become part of the path.

Looking back at my own journey, some of the hardest moments eventually became the experiences that shaped the work I now feel most aligned with.

Nothing was wasted.

So if you’ve been feeling that quiet pull lately…
Please don’t ignore it.

Sometimes that feeling is the beginning of your real life work calling you forward.

Quick pulse check:
Which one describes you right now?

1️⃣ I feel there’s something bigger I’m meant to do
2️⃣ I’m starting to figure out what it is
3️⃣ I’m already building toward it

Comment 1, 2 or 3.

#innerwork #awakeningachiever #天命人

Most people don’t burn out from failure.
They burn out from succeeding at the wrong life.

If you’re doing well on paper but something feels off inside, read this post. 

Here are 7 signs you are succeeding but losing yourself. 
(see pictures below)

Be honest: how many hit you?
Comment the number.

#scalewithsoul #awakeningachiever

Former GE Capital Executive | I help founders and executives see what their financials aren’t telling them.

I spent 25 years inside the machine.

GE Capital. GE Vernova. NBCUniversal. Unilever. Structured finance, capital markets, project finance across Latin America. I was the CFO who sat across from banks, governments, and Fortune 500 boards and made the numbers make sense. I closed an $800 million power plant deal. I managed capital market teams and hundred-million-dollar sales budgets. I built financial models that moved real money in real markets.

I was good at it. For a long time, that was enough.

Then it wasn't.

I stayed almost eight years past the moment I knew I was done. Eight years of golden handcuffs, institutional momentum, and not having a single person in my corner who could help me think through what leaving actually looked like -- financially, strategically, personally.

When I finally left, I made mistakes. I jumped into a startup that looked great on paper and had no financial foundation underneath it. I learned the hard way that passion without financial intelligence is just expensive optimism. Then I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars learning the things corporate never taught me -- how to sell, how to communicate with conviction, how to walk into a room and make people feel what I knew to be true about their business.

That education nearly broke me. And it turned me into something rare: a former Fortune 500 CFO who can read your financials like a surgeon reads an MRI and sit across from you like a partner who actually gives a damn.

That's what I do now.

I work with a small number of founders and executives -- people who've already built something substantial and want a strategic partner with real financial depth. Not a coach. Not a consultant recycling frameworks. Not a bookkeeper calling themselves a fractional CFO. Someone who's been in the rooms, closed the deals, read the balance sheets, and came out the other side with a clear point of view about what actually matters.

If you're a founder past $1M who can feel that the way you got here won't get you to the next level, I can show you exactly where the growth is hiding and where the model breaks.

If you're an executive who knows you're meant for something bigger than the title on your business card, I've been where you are. I made the leap. I can help you think through yours.

I don't work with everyone. I'm selective about who I take on because the work only works when both sides are all in.

One conversation is all it takes to know if we're the right fit.

Cruz Gamboa

Most founders don’t go bankrupt overnight.

They bleed slowly.
From numbers they refused to look at.

Revenue looks good.
Growth feels exciting.
Ego feels validated.

But:

➡️ Cash flow is tight
➡️ Margins are thin
➡️ One client controls everything
➡️ Burn rate is “we’ll figure it out”

That’s how businesses die.

Not from lack of ambition.
From lack of financial discipline.

Here’s the cheat sheet I wish every founder read earlier.

Ignore red flags early → pay the price later.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Your P&L Is Hiding the Real Problem.

Most founders check 3 things:

Revenue.
Profit.
Growth rate.

Then they relax.

That’s the mistake.

Because your P&L is a scoreboard.

Not a diagnosis.

And scoreboards don’t tell you why you’re winning,
or why you’re about to lose.

Here’s what it’s not showing you 👇

If revenue is growing but cash is tight…

You don’t have a profit problem.
You have a cash flow problem.

If sales are strong but margins are shrinking…

You don’t have a demand problem.
You have a pricing or delivery problem.

If profit exists but stress keeps increasing…

You don’t have a money problem.
You have an operational problem.

Most businesses don’t collapse overnight.

They erode slowly:

➡️ Slightly rising CAC
➡️ Slightly lower margins
➡️ Slightly higher payroll
➡️ Slightly longer collections

Small leaks.

Compounded monthly.

And because the P&L still “looks fine,”
no one panics.

Until they should have.

Here’s what real operators track:

✓ Gross margin trends
✓ Cash runway (in months) 
✓ Revenue per employee
✓ CAC payback period
✓ Churn rate

Those numbers tell you where the fire is starting.

Revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity.
Cash flow is survival.

Read your P&L.

But interrogate it harder.

Because the businesses that scale aren’t the ones with the best revenue.

They’re the ones who catch problems before they show up on the bottom line.

Your financial reports are perfect.

Clean P&L.
Accurate balance sheet.
Cash flow that ties out.

Yet decisions still feel slow, reactive, or unclear.

That’s because reports don’t create leverage.
Interpretation does.

Most founders read numbers like history.
High-performing operators read them like instructions.

Every metric should force a decision:
→ double down
→ fix fast
→ kill it

If nothing changes after reviewing your numbers,
you didn’t review them, you admired them.

This cheat sheet breaks down:

➡️ The questions that actually matter
➡️ The metrics that lie
➡️ And how to spot 1% changes that unlock outsized results

Save this before your next finance review.

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cruzgamboadrive

patagonia-solar-llc

This guy bought one random car dealership.
Turned it into a $5B empire.

No fancy startup.
No venture capital.

Just one smart business move.

Terry Taylor started like most people in the auto industry:

Working inside dealerships.

Climbing the ladder.

But he realized something important:

No matter how hard you work…
You’re still building someone else’s business.

So in 1982, he bought his first dealership in Daytona Beach.

Most people would stop there.

He didn’t.

But the real genius wasn’t buying more dealerships.

It was how he structured them.

Instead of hiring managers, he:

• Gave them 20–25% equity
• Helped finance their buy-in
• Let them run the store

Now managers weren’t employees.

They were owners.

And owners think differently.

They protect profits.
They grow the business.
They care about reputation.

So scaling became easy.

1 dealership → 10 → 50 → 120+ dealerships

Today the network does $5B+ in revenue.

Simple lesson:

People work harder for ownership than salaries.

Build partners.
Not employees

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Terry Taylor

He spent 31 years running Trader Joe’s.
Mastered pricing. Supply chains. Consumer psychology.
But one thing bothered him more than anything else: food waste.

Every year, the U.S. throws away 120 billion pounds of perfectly good food.
Not unsafe. Just didn’t fit profit models.

Millions of families struggle to afford groceries.
Most CEOs see this as “business as usual.”
Doug saw it as broken design.

After retiring, he didn’t join a board. He didn’t consult.
He asked a different question:

💡 What if food waste became the foundation, not a byproduct?
What if access mattered more than margin?

✅ Daily Table is born.
✅ Grocery store built on surplus food.
✅ Affordable meals. Nutritious produce. Dignity first.
✅ No charity branding. No eligibility checks.
✅ Nonprofit by design. Every surplus reinvested in lowering prices.

Critics say it can’t scale. Doug agrees.
It wasn’t meant to dominate. It was meant to fix a failure everyone ignored.

From grocery CEO → noticing waste everywhere → building a store that feeds people, not profits.

If you want to rethink how systems work, look at incentives, not supply.
This is the anti-profit grocery model.

Daily Table

He was a waiter at Red Lobster.

He had $40.

Most people would complain. He built a $6B brand.

Here’s how:

✅ Saw a problem: kids in his neighborhood paying too much for hats.

✅ Took action: taught himself to sew, made hats at home.

✅ Scaled smart: sold locally → hip-hop stars wore FUBU → national attention.

✅ Got creative: turned his living room into a factory, raised money when banks said NO.

✅ Played the long game: built FUBU → became Shark Tank investor → mentors hundreds of startups.

Most people chase attention.
He chased problems that matter.

Critics said it wouldn’t work. He did it anyway.

You don’t need permission. You don’t need hype.
You need clarity, hustle, and persistence.

From $40 → living room hustle → global empire → Shark Tank.
That’s how legends are built

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

Daymond John

Most people think billion-dollar companies start with experts.

Crumbl Cookies started with two tech guys who had never baked a cookie.

In 2017, they noticed something simple:
Cookies were America’s favorite dessert, but the category hadn’t evolved.
So they focused on a few key moves:

▶ Perfected one cookie first
▶ Kept the menu simple (1 classic + 4 rotating flavors)
▶ Turned weekly flavor drops into social media events

That simple strategy turned a 900 sq ft store and $10K into

✅ 800+ locations
✅ 1M cookies sold daily
✅ $1B+ valuation

They didn’t win by doing more.
They won by focusing on the few decisions that drive everything.

That’s true in finance too.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, go to scalingcfo.io
Take the free assessments and see exactly where to focus first.

Crumbl Cookies

Some people launch snacks.
Some create global empires from leftovers.

Arch West did the second.

➡️ 1960s. Disneyland.

Casa de Fritos. Tons of stale tortillas. Wasted daily.
A small vendor saw opportunity.
“Cut them into triangles. Fry them. Add some seasoning.”

No PR. No hype. No flashy launch.

Just execution.
Just obsession.
Just seeing value where others saw trash.

1966 → Plain Doritos, national launch.
1972 → Nacho Cheese.
From leftover tortillas → multibillion-dollar snack empire.

Scaling lesson:

Opportunities are everywhere. Most ignore them.
Those who see the leverage, execute relentlessly, and scale turn accidents into legends.

Some people chase attention.
Some quietly turn scraps into billions.

#scalingup #ceo #founder #businesslessons

Doritos

$30,000 → $7 BILLION.
No hype. No fluff. Just strategy.

Dennis Washington was 30, broke, and borrowing $30k from a Caterpillar dealer.

He bought one bulldozer and started doing construction in Montana.

Within 5 years? He was the largest contractor in the state.

But he didn’t stop there.

He asked a simple question:
"Where is everyone running from?"

Then he built a formula:

✅ Buy failing businesses that everyone else ignores.
✅ Fix the basics cut costs, improve management, unlock cash flow.
✅ Use the profits to buy the next one.
✅ Repeat.

First test: a worthless copper mine.
Bought for $15M → $100M profits in 3 years.

Next: a struggling global construction firm, merged it → Washington Group International → sold for $2.6B.

Now? Real estate, aviation, railroads, marine services… a $7B empire all from turning broken things into cash.

Most people run from broken businesses. Dennis Washington built a $7B empire fixing them.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

Dennis Washington

He had nothing.
No friends. Barely spoke English. ADHD made school unbearable.

At 16, he dropped out. Taught himself to code. Became obsessed with modifying video games.

At 22, he moved to Canada. New country. No network. Just a laptop and a love for snowboarding.

Started an online snowboard store → it failed.

But the software he built to run it? People wanted it.

💡 Lightbulb moment: Forget snowboards. Sell the software.

✅ Shopify is born.
✅ Made e-commerce simple.
✅ Millions of stores. 175 countries. Even Amazon switched.

From high school dropout → coding every week → building the internet’s mall worth $147B.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io
Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

TOBIAS LÜTKE

Most “profitable” companies are one bad month away from dying.

Here’s why.

Profit is an opinion.
Cash is oxygen.

You can look profitable on paper and still miss payroll.
I’ve seen businesses doing 7 figures collapse because one client paid late.

Revenue doesn’t matter if:

• It’s delayed
• It’s unpredictable
• It’s already spent in your head

Growth makes this worse.

You hire early.
Lock in fixed costs.
Sign long-term tools.
Upgrade lifestyle.

Now your burn is permanent…
…but your income isn’t.

That’s the trap.

Another hard truth:
If the founder steps away and sales stop, you don’t have a business.
You have a high-stress job with employees.

Margins won’t save you.
Busy won’t save you.
Brand won’t save you.

Only cash flow will.

Simple rules that keep companies alive:

• Collect faster than you spend
• Keep fixed costs boring
• Build 3–6 months of runway
• Systems before scaling
• Liquidity before vanity growth

The strongest businesses aren’t the loudest.

They’re the ones that can survive a bad month without panicking.

That’s real leverage.

Peter Steinberger could have built “cool” software.

He didn’t.

He built useful software.

PDFs were everywhere. Developers were stuck with messy workflows. Peter asked:

What if developers had tools that just worked? That solved real problems, not just looked good on a portfolio?

✅ PSPDFKit → powers PDF apps across mobile & web.
✅ Open-source projects → simplify workflows, save engineers hours.
✅ OpenClaw → personal AI agent that actually helps you code.

Most people chase attention. Peter chases problems.

Critics say niche tools won’t scale. Peter doesn’t care.
He’s not in it for hype. He’s in it for impact.

From engineer → spotting friction everywhere → building tools that make developers’ lives better.

If you want to build something meaningful, solve real problems.
The market rewards results, not ideas.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.

Peter Steinberger

Most founders don’t fail overnight.

They bleed slowly.
From decisions they ignored.
From processes they never set.
From metrics they refused to measure.

Revenue looks fine. Growth feels exciting. Ego feels validated.

But underneath:

➡️ Decisions get delayed → chaos spreads
➡️ Processes depend on you → hero culture burns out
➡️ Metrics are “nice to have” → guesswork rules
➡️ Accountability is optional → everyone points fingers

That’s how scaling dies.

Not from lack of ambition.
From lack of rules.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.
If this helped, save it.
#scalingup #founders #ceo

Most people saw a ping pong table.

Max Koehler saw a business.

In 2019, he noticed something strange:

Table tennis is one of the most played sports in the world,
but in U.S. cities there were very few places to play regularly.

Most founders would open a traditional club.

Max built PingPod instead.

Small glass studios.
Open 24/7.
Booked entirely through an app.
No staff. No front desk.

But the real genius?

A camera above every table.

Every rally gets recorded.
One tap → instant replay → share on social.

Players created the content.
The content created the marketing.

Clips went viral.
Bookings exploded.

Today PingPod is valued around $40–60M.

All from one simple observation.

The best founders don’t just build products.
They build systems that grow themselves. 🚀

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities, go to
scalingcfo.io

Take the free assessments and see exactly where to focus first.

#scalingup #founders #CEO

Max Koehler

The trillion-dollar scoreboard isn’t just impressive.

It’s a warning. ⚠️

AI is no longer a feature.
It’s infrastructure.

Distribution beats product.
Platforms compress margins.
Specialisation scales faster than breadth.

And the giants NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Apple aren’t just companies anymore.

They’re rails.

If you’re a $1M–$10M founder, here’s the real play:

➡️ Build on top of giants, don’t compete with them.
➡️ Own your audience, don’t rent it.
➡️ Go narrow, dominate a micro-niche.
➡️ Push recurring revenue.
➡️ Move faster than anyone with a board meeting.

The economy is consolidating at the top.

But execution speed is still decentralised.

That’s your edge.

If you're building between $1–$10M and want to scale intelligently, not just aggressively

Come to the workshop → https://lnkd.in/efBiFQRg

I keep having the same conversation.

Founder calls me. Revenue is up -- sometimes way up. 

But they're taking home less than when the business was half the size. 

They hired the consultants. They wrote the plan. They pushed harder on sales. And somehow the business keeps snapping back to the same number like a rubber band.

After sitting across from enough of these founders, I started seeing the pattern. It comes down to three things nobody wants to talk about -- and none of them have anything to do with selling more.

I broke it all down in this week's newsletter.
#scalingup #founders #growth #CEO

I talk to a lot of founders. Like, a LOT. And something keeps coming up that I can't ignore anymore. Almost every conversation -- doesn't matter what 

Open article: The 3 things nobody tells you about getting stuck by Cruz Gamboa • 5 min read

The 3 things nobody tells you about getting stuck

LVMH is worth $292.9 billion.

You're worth $10M and stressed about payroll.

Same industry. Completely different money game. Here's why.

I've sat inside dozens of $5M–$50M businesses as a fractional CFO.

The pattern never changes.

Founders confuse 3 separate problems:

❌ "We have a cash flow problem."

No. You have a timing problem. Revenue is fine. Your money is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's fixable in 90 days.

❌ "We have a scaling problem."

No. You tried to grow before your operations could hold the weight. Every single time. Growth didn't break you, the lack of systems did.

❌ "We have a fundraising problem."

No. Investors don't fund vision. They fund numbers that prove the vision is real. You don't have a pitch problem. You have a financial story problem.

Now look at the billion-dollar brands:

Inditex built Zara to $193B by selling inventory before the bill came due.

Hermès built $235B by turning scarcity into a balance sheet strategy.

Fast Retailing scaled Uniqlo globally because they built finance infrastructure first.

None of that is luck.
All of it is decisions, financial decisions dressed up as brand decisions.

The difference between them and you isn't capital.

It's that they stopped running on gut feel and built a machine that tells them exactly where every dollar is going, and why.

You don't need a $500K CFO on payroll.

You need 10 hours a month of the right financial brain in the room.

That's the actual arbitrage most $5M–$50M founders are sleeping on.

If your finances are running you instead of the other way around,

Comment "CFO" below and I'll show you exactly where to start.

99% of founders do this backwards.

They try to scale a business
that no one has proven they want.

Then they try to sell a business
that only works because they exist.

Here’s the real order:

1. Start
Don’t build the product.
Sell it first.

If no one pays, it’s not a business.
It’s a fantasy.

2. Scale
Do less. Better.
One offer. One audience. One channel.

Systemize everything.
If it needs you to survive, it’s not scalable.

3. Sell
Buyers don’t pay for hype.
They pay for predictable cash flow.

Clean books.
Recurring revenue.
Low founder dependency.

Start with proof.
Scale with systems.
Exit with leverage.

That’s how you build something that prints money, not something that prints stress.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

Most founders don’t have a growth problem.
They have a focus problem.

Their dashboards are full.
Their results are not.

Tracking more KPIs doesn’t make you smarter.

It just gives you more ways to avoid the hard decision.

Here’s how serious founders think about metrics:

If a number doesn’t change what you do this week,
it doesn’t belong on your dashboard.

That’s why the only startup metrics that actually matter answer 4 questions:

1. Is demand growing?
2. Are customers staying?
3. Are they paying more over time?
4. Are we running out of cash before we figure it out?

Everything else is noise.

The best operators I’ve seen track 5–7 metrics max.
They review them weekly.
And they tie each metric to a clear action.

Everyone tracks KPIs.
Very few track the right ones.

If you want to find your biggest 1% opportunities,
check out scalingcfo.io.

Free assessment.

If this helped, save it.

The Hidden Cost of Optimism in Your Financials

Optimism doesn’t build businesses.

Cash flow does.

Here’s how optimism quietly kills companies:

1. Optimism delays action
“I’ll hire a CFO at $10M.”
No.
You’re stuck at $3M because you didn’t.

2. Optimism ignores the downside
You planned for the average outcome.
Business gave you the worst one.
That’s not bad luck. That’s bad planning.

3. Optimism spends future money
You’re spending like next quarter’s revenue is guaranteed.
It isn’t.
Hope doesn’t clear payroll.

4. Optimism hides leaks
2% margin loss feels small.
Until it happens across 4 lines.
Now you’re bleeding 8% and wondering why growth feels hard.

5. Optimism skips the buffer
No cash reserve isn’t confidence.
It’s arrogance.
Survivors don’t guess right, they prepare longer.

6. Optimism assumes peak performance
Your model requires you to crush it every quarter.
You won’t.
Systems beat motivation. Every time.

7. Optimism creates fragile plans
If losing one client breaks your business,
you don’t have a model.
You have a wish.

8. Optimism avoids hard calls
Cutting bad products.
Renegotiating vendors.
Walking away from “almost profitable” deals.
These feel bad.
They work.

9. Optimism makes scaling harder
The best founders plan pessimistically
and execute aggressively.
Everyone else just “stays positive” until reality shows up.

Here’s the truth:
Real confidence isn’t thinking things will work out.
It’s knowing your numbers so well
you can survive when they don’t.

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Eric Feng (CSP) - Global Speaker

Cruz Gamboa

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taplio

The Battle

Eric Feng (CSP) - Global Speaker

Cruz Gamboa

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Eric Feng (CSP) - Global Speaker's LinkedIn Performance

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