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I’ve learned something very quickly in business:
Nobody wants to work with Eeyore.
You know the type.
Every idea is stupid, they see the problem in every plan. Every opportunity is “probably not worth it.” Every time someone gets excited, it’s like a wet blanket crashing through the ceiling tiles to smother everyone’s enthusiasm.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about thoughtful skepticism.
Good operators/investors ask hard questions. Someone stress testing your ideas and assumptions is useful and necessary for a business to thrive over the long-term.
I’m talking about the person who finds a leak in the boat and then feeling smug while everyone else tries to row. Those people are miserable to hire, miserable to manage, and miserable to work with.
They drain oxygen from the room. They make simple things feel hard. They confuse cynicism for intelligence because being negative gives them the cheap high of sounding sophisticated without ever having to build anything.
It’s very easy to say why something won’t work.
It’s much harder to be the person who says, “What would have to be true for this idea to work?” That person is magnetic.
They don’t have to be the smartest or skilled because they bring the energy. They’re open to ideas and make the work lighter without making it unserious. They can sit in a stressful room and still crack a joke at the right moment.
The result is that they end up drawing people in because people want to work with them.
In my line of work (M&A) this is critical when people are making constant high-stakes decisions (this tends to get everyone wound a bit tight).
For most (except those pesky trust funders) we spend most of our lives working. That’s insane when you actually think about it. Decades of calls, emails, meetings, negotiations, losses, wins, problems, clients, hiring, firing, and trying again. Why would you want to do all of that with people who make every day feel worse?
I’d rather be around the person who brings a little joy. Serious about the mission, but not addicted to unnecessary self-torture. That’s what I mean by being magnetic.
So be magnetic, the world has enough Eeyores.
Your support queue gets a head start every morning.
Viktor reads overnight tickets, tags them by product area, summarizes the patterns, and posts a brief in #support. The agent picks up the queue already triaged. The PM sees recurring requests rolled up by Friday.
blog of the week
If you’re thinking about selling your business, diligence is not something that starts after a buyer shows up.
It starts before you go to market.
The more prepared you are, the fewer surprises show up later. Clean financials, organized contracts, clear customer data, employee documentation, tax records, and a defensible story around the business all help protect momentum once a deal is live.
The goal is simple: reduce buyer uncertainty before it becomes a price chip.
Read the full checklist here: Seller Due Diligence Checklist →
idea of the week 💡
Credit: ideabrowser.com
Problem: Schools keep adding software tools one app at a time. A classroom video app autoplays the next clip. A math app uses streaks. A quiz tool adds social pressure. Another platform pushes notifications all day. Each product may look harmless in isolation, but stacked across a student’s day they create a cumulative attention burden nobody is really measuring.
Idea: Cumula is an attention audit for school software stacks. It scores the full portfolio of classroom apps and shows administrators how autoplay, streaks, notifications, variable rewards, and social mechanics compound across the school day. Leadership gets a defensible report, a portfolio score, and a procurement gate for evaluating new apps before signing another contract.
How it works (wedge): Start with three school networks and manually audit their software stacks at $10K each. Use public per-app ratings from sources like Common Sense Media, then add the missing layer: how attention mechanics interact when students encounter them across multiple tools in the same day. Turn that into a burden score per student per day that leadership can act on.
How it makes money: The initial manual audit lands the account. The ongoing scorecard and procurement gate renew annually at roughly $15K, scaled by stack size. Buyers are reachable through education leadership groups, procurement cycles, and conferences where district technology decisions get made.
Why it might fail: The rubric has to feel credible. If administrators see it as hand-wavy wellness theatre, it won’t survive budget scrutiny. The path through is tight methodology, clear case studies, and outcomes schools already care about: lower screen time, cleaner renewals, and fewer complaints from parents and teachers.
workouts this week
at-home
10-minute EMOM:
Minute 1: 12 push-ups
Minute 2: 18 air squats
Minute 3: 12 sit-ups
Minute 4: 8 burpees
Minute 5: Rest
Repeat twice.
gym
Strength + conditioning. 5 rounds:
Front squat: 5 reps
Pull-ups or lat pulldown: 8-10 reps
Dumbbell bench press: 10 reps
Farmer carry: 40 metres
Row erg: 250 metres hard
Rest 90 seconds between rounds.
outdoors
5-minute easy jog
8 rounds: 30-second hill sprint, walk back down
5-minute walk cool-down
my plugs
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