You Don’t Need More Speed. You Need More Leverage.
Leverage really is the key.
In the startup world, “move fast” is gospel.
Ship faster. Raise quicker. Hire aggressively. Scale now.
Speed is glorified, because it creates momentum, and momentum sells.
But here’s the thing:
Speed without leverage just burns energy.
Founders don’t fail because they didn’t move fast enough.
They fail because they moved fast. On the wrong things.
The First-Time Founder Trap
When I built ContentCal, I was a first-time founder.
That meant every decision had to be learned the hard way.
We pushed hard, hiring, selling, building, raising. Always moving.
But underneath that speed was fragility.
Too many dependencies. Not enough compounding systems.
It worked. We got to scale. We exited to Adobe.
But if I could go back and do it again, I’d focus less on speed, and more on leverage.
Why? Because leverage is what lets you compound.
And second-time founders, the ones who build cleaner, faster, and smarter, aren’t necessarily better.
They’ve just learned how to build leverage from day one.
What Is Leverage?
Naval Ravikant puts it simply:
“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”
Real wealth comes from code, capital, content, or people — the tools that let you do more with less.
Leverage is how you get disproportionate output from focused input.
It’s the opposite of grind. It’s the enemy of hustle.
Types of leverage:
Product – Build something once, sell it forever.
Code – Automate what would take 10 people to do manually.
Content – Share ideas at scale, build brand trust, attract inbound.
Capital – Use other people’s money to accelerate outcomes.
People – Build teams that ship while you sleep.
Narrative – Build belief at scale.
Speed runs out. Leverage compounds.
Second-Time Founders Build Different
There’s research to back it up. According to a First Round Capital study:
Second-time founders are 60% more likely to succeed than first-timers.
Why?
Because they don’t chase speed for its own sake.
They’ve learned to:
Hire operators, not helpers.
Say no to noise.
Build systems that reduce friction.
Sequence their bets.
Speak the investor’s language from day one.
They don’t just move fast.
They move clean.
Leverage Is a Founder’s Superpower
Let’s break down how I think about it today:
1.Narrative Leverage
You can’t build anything meaningful without belief.
And belief scales through story.
As a founder, your narrative is the first form of leverage you control:
Why now?
Why you?
Why this problem?
Why this market?
If you can’t answer those in 30 seconds, you’re not ready to raise, hire, or sell.
In every pitch, every round I’ve raised, the deals that moved quickly:
Were the ones where the narrative was tight.
One sentence. One vision. One outcome.
This is what second-time founders get right.
They don’t pitch what they do. They pitch what the world will look like when they win.
Team Leverage
Great founders don’t build fast teams.
They build teams that can run without them.
That’s leverage.
Your role as CEO is not to “do everything.” It’s to:
Set the direction
Recruit high-leverage people
Install systems for clarity
Get out of the way
At JAAQ, I build systems to ensure decisions don’t bottleneck through me.
Every operator can make 80% of calls without me.
That’s not abdication. That’s leverage.
Time Leverage
Speed worship often leads to calendar chaos.
But calendar chaos kills clarity.
Leverage means designing your time like a founder, not a freelancer.
Batching. Thinking. Delegating. Guarding your calendar like equity.
I live by what I call the Clarity Calendar:
No external calls before 10am
3x weekly blocks of deep, undistracted thought
All meetings stacked into 2 core days
Fridays: no calls, no context switching, just build, plan, think
This rhythm gives me energy. And energy is the fuel of leverage.
4.Capital Leverage
I’ve raised more than $40M across different stages, from pre-seed to late growth.
The rounds that worked?
Had a clear “why now” story
Were run like a structured campaign
Had scarcity and momentum
Used capital to unlock real inflection points
Capital is a tool.
It should buy you leverage, not just vanity growth.
If your team is still chaotic post-raise, or your churn’s still a mess, you didn’t raise, you just delayed failure.
Use capital to build cleaner infrastructure, not add speed to a messy system.
Content & Brand Leverage
People follow momentum.
But what creates momentum?
Content. Clarity. Consistency.
I now treat my content like Venture Wisely, my posts, my brand, as a leverage flywheel.
Every essay, every podcast, every story builds:
Awareness
Trust
Inbound interest
Belief
Not just from customers. From partners, investors, operators.
One piece of content done right can open 10 doors.
That’s leverage.
Case Studies: Leverage in Action
Let’s talk about founders you know who use this.
Tobi Lütke (Shopify)
Built leverage through code, hiring, and calm systems thinking. Shopify scaled because it had infrastructure — not hype.Melanie Perkins (Canva)
Created leverage through narrative and distribution. Her story — design for everyone — resonated globally. The product was simple. The story made it scale.Reid Hoffman
From PayPal to LinkedIn to Greylock — a masterclass in network and capital leverage. Each move compounded.
So What Should You Do?
If you’re building right now, pause and ask:
Are you burning energy or building leverage?
Is your calendar serving your thinking?
Is your team structured for autonomy?
Is your pitch just information, or belief?
Is your marketing scalable, or hustle-based?
Here’s what I’d do if I were starting over:
Nail the narrative - from day 1
Hire 3 operators, not 10 helpers
Automate boring tasks before adding people
Keep my burn on target, my systems clean, my time sacred
Post every week, build an audience before I need it
Raise on vision, not vibes
Final Thought
Speed feels good. Leverage builds empires.
One creates short-term highs. The other creates long-term peace and power.
You don’t need to be faster.
You need to be sharper.
More strategic.
More leveraged.
The best founders don’t just win because they worked harder.
They win because they built the machine that worked for them.