Vince Tan

Serial Entrepreneur - Business Mentor - Strategist - Investor. Best known for my signature program Entrepreneur Masterclass.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Sprinting during the good months feels like winning

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

The founders I've watched blow up rarely blew up in the bad months.

They blew up because of decisions they made in the good ones.

Anyone can grind. The discipline is holding back.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

By the time a revenue miss shows up in your dashboard, the cause happened eight weeks ago in a Slack thread nobody escalated.

Fix: 45 min every Friday, leading indicators only, one question per metric — "if this trend holds six weeks, what breaks?"

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Most teams review lagging indicators on Monday and wonder why the quarter went s

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

By the time a revenue miss shows up in your dashboard, the cause happened eight weeks ago in a Slack thread nobody escalated.

Fix: 45-min Friday review, leading indicators only, one question per metric — "if this trend holds for six weeks, what breaks?"

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Most founders review revenue and MRR — numbers that are 60-90 days stale

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

You won't find this leverage in a productivity app. You find it by staring at your calendar on a Friday and being honest.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Last Friday a founder told me he "crushed it" — 47 meetings, 312 Slack messages, inbox zero twice.

I asked what moved.

Silence.

That silence is the disease.

There are two kinds of busy:

Spinning — push harder every week to get the same output.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Label them with the specific output — not "deep work" but "draft the Q3 partnership memo."

Vague blocks get eaten. Specific blocks survive.

Why 30 minutes and not 90?

The goal isn't a beautiful review.

It's a review that still happens in week 47.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Asked a founder how his week went. "Crushed it" — 47 meetings, 312 Slack messages, inbox zero twice.

Then I asked what moved.

Silence.

Busy and compounding are not the same business. Most founders are running the first one and measuring the second.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

A founder I know went from $80K MRR solo to $120K MRR with a team of six.

His take-home went down. His hours went up. Two days a week in 1:1s.

He'd built himself a job at his own company.

That's not scaling. That's demotion with extra steps.

[Vince Tan @vincetan]

Stripe data on YC startups: median company that hit $1M ARR spent 14 months at near-zero revenue first. Median founder who quit did so at month 7.

Same growth rate. Month 3→6 adds 79 users. Month 21→24 adds 630.

You quit the week before the check clears.

#foundermode #ship