A weekly industry memo for founders who refuse to build generic software. I’m sharing the frameworks, "Dark Arts," and product strategy we use at Jams to build high-fidelity products in the experience economy.
When warming up makes all the difference
The Co-Founder MemoA product co-founder in your inbox. Happy Sunday! Today:
Let's go! 🧠 From the LabI've been non stop thinking about the importance of warming up, and the impact not doing so has (and viceversa). I'm currently training really heavily for climbing. My current routine is 4x per week (2 boulder + 2 rope). My next goal is climbing the peaks of Frey (Bariloche), next December. Warming up on climbing is extremely important. You start moving your body slowly. You start getting into the zone. You warm up your fingers. Your arms. Your upper body. Your lower body. Your feet. At first you feel clumsy. As you make progress, you get more and more into it until you're at max capacity and max performance. This process is different for everyone, and depends heavily on your climbing level. Usually you warm up with easy things. Easy isn't the same for every climber. I've been noticing more and more how hard warming up is for me. And how painful it feels like when I skip the proper warm up or I try to rush things. My session won't only suck. But I'll also come back home destroyed. My sleep will be horrible. And the next day I'll be useless. Yesterday I went for a rope climb session. I went straight to this route I've already worked on but couldn't send. (Author note: Sending a route means free climbing it on one shot without falling off or taking a break between moves of the ascent). It was a battle against this route. The last time I went for it I did around 4 attempts. I kept falling off in the upper section. Yesterday I did an initial warm up climb. Then attempted the route twice. It was on the 3rd attempt I was able to finally send it. Biggest learning? My two failed attempts felt hard. My arms and hands hurt. I couldn't avoid falling off. My 3rd and final attempt? I felt incredibly light. Fast. Focused. And I barely felt any pain. I came down ready for more. What changed? Well, a couple of things. But the most important one was the warm up. I took a process to get to that in-the-zone stage. Unavoidable. This got me thinking a lot about the day to day. Have you ever sat for work and took like 10 to 20 minutes to actually start getting anything done? Have you ever switched tasks quickly just to check something or reply to a message and then found yourself needing 20 more minutes to get back on track? This is the warm up. This is why having blocks of deep work on your calendar is so damn important. And taking the right breaks in between blocks too. There are times of the day for long, deep-work sessions. And other times of the day for conversations or switching micro tasks. There are even times for long, deep-work collaborative sessions with other people. You simply gotta understand how long it takes your mind or body to really warm up and be ready for the attempt. This is something you learn and earn. You can't buy it. No fancy office space, gadget, pomodoro timer or isolation headphones will teach you how to warm up and get focused. These things are just add-ons and hacks that might or might not get you there faster. Warm up. Avoid aggressive switching. Stick with it. Rest after each attempt. Reset when necessary. Repeat. 🔧 From the TrenchesI've been running my business Jams for two years. And I've been on and off running tiny businesses for almost 10. Sometimes I get lost along the way. Or confused. Sometimes I don't know where to go next. Or how to move forward. Currently my business hit a plateau and I'm figuring out how to take it to the next level. Having dinner with a founder friend a few days ago, he reminded me of something important. You gotta figure out those day-to-day tasks you're good at, you enjoy doing, that will have the biggest impact on your business in the long run, and you can stick with for years. One of my coaches went even deeper after doing an assessment of my current situation. He wasn't worried about this plateau. Or our monthly revenue. Or our operational struggles. He was worried about two things: My sleep. And my current top sales channel (currently referrals). It all came down to me after looking for this for a few months. If you run a business, any kind, in any industry, and any size, there are two things you can't negotiate: Sleep. And training. I spend 10 hours per day on average sitting on my ass in front of the computer. My brain is as important as a body for an athlete is. And the only drug to take care of it is sleep. Good sleep. Period. Training makes it easier so I function better, stay healthy and don't get fat while sitting on my ass. This applies to an employee, a freelancer, a $500k founder, a $10m founder, and a billionaire still operating in a high-performance context. Additionally, as a small business owner, a third task is extremely important for me besides sleep and training. And that's figuring out a sales channel I can grow my business on. These 3 are my top priorities from now on. Sleep 7-8 hours of net sleep (not bedtime) per night. Stick to my climbing training. Primarily work on validating and scaling a sales channel for my business. Try it out. Might be good for you. It's doing wonders for me. 💭 From the ChairI have a theory around why most people get coaching wrong. High performance athletes pay coaches to push them beyond their limits, not to tell them “good job, you’ll do better next time”. Athletes pay their coaches so that they tell them “one more lap, one more round, you can do it, you can’t fail, and you can’t quit, just keep going, one more”. So, think about a few things: The same way you’d hire a coach to train you - why wouldn’t you hire a coach to teach you how to eat better? Or to work on your couple challenges? Or your emotional challenges? Or to help you grow your business? When you hire an employee, reverse engineer the relationship: they are actually hiring you, they pay you with time, and in exchange of that, you give them money. These people are giving you the best years of their professional life (ideally). What are you doing instead? Are you pushing them to their limits? Are you telling them “you can do much better”? Or are you the “good job, you’ll do better next time” coach? Think about the impact that your feedback has both on themselves, and on your business. And think about how faster you can grow with the right coaches and support systems next to you. Inspiration:
🔗 From the FeedBeen struggling to find new good books to read (failed on Essentialism and lastly on This is Strategy by Seth Godin). So currently back at re-reading "Let My People Go Surfing" by Yvon Chouinard. A few podcasts I've listened to:
Yes, I've been consuming Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton a lot. Deep conversations. And the ads are insanely good! If you made it this far, really appreciate you. Until next Sunday, Juan P.S. If you know someone who might benefit from reading this, please share. The Co-Founder Memo goes out every Sunday. Join 1,000+ founders here. |
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A weekly industry memo for founders who refuse to build generic software. I’m sharing the frameworks, "Dark Arts," and product strategy we use at Jams to build high-fidelity products in the experience economy.
Hey, Juan here. If you made it here through my Founder Memo videos, thank you. This one's a bit more personal than the previous ones. I spent 4 nights in a remote area in northern Patagonia called Frey (Bariloche, Argentina). It was my most intense climbing experience. No phone signal. Lots of climbers and hikers from everywhere. Great sense of community. And an alpine paradise formed by a huge valley. All this creates a big sense of connection to the place. Here are 3 lessons from the trip...
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