The Farmer's Dog

As the VP of Engineering at The Farmer's Dog, I spearhead a diverse and dynamic team of over 50 professionals. Our mission? To innovate at the intersection of technology and pet nutrition. We don't just solve problems—we create transformative solutions. 

A key achievement was our successful launch of a Super Bowl ad. We hit this milestone not just with flawless execution—zero site downtime—but also with a message that resonated powerfully. The proof? It was named the top ad by multiple media outlets, including USA Today.

Every day, we're breaking new ground, developing tech strategies in partnership with R&D that are reshaping our industry. We're more than just a team—we're a force for change in pet nutrition.

VP of Engineering

FabFitFun

Sr. Director of Engineering

During my tenure at FabFitFun, I helmed a diverse, cross-continental team of 50 engineers, channeling our collective expertise to innovate across mobile and sales platforms, as well as our online community.

My leadership role went beyond day-to-day management - it was about strategic transformation. I initiated the transition from monolithic architecture to microservices, spearheaded the integration of CI/CD into our entire engineering lifecycle, and championed the introduction of automated testing best practices. The outcome? A drastic reduction in deployment time from weeks to mere days.

Our accomplishments didn't stop at internal improvements. We took the reins of technology involved in our sales pipelines, collectively generating a revenue of one billion dollars annually. Furthermore, under my guidance, we created a comprehensive native mobile app experience and laid down a formal onboarding process for engineering. 

At the heart of our success was a keen focus on community. By fostering strong connections within the team and nurturing an environment of collaboration, we were able to propel FabFitFun to new heights of technological achievement.

Director Of Engineering

Habit, LLC

Acquired by Viome

Experience
I was the second technical hire at Habit.  As the Head of Engineering, I managed a 24-person engineering team including Engineers, Project Managers, and QA Managers.  We worked in an agile environment with cross-functional teams that included Digital Product Managers, Consumer Packaged Goods, Brand Managers, and Data Scientists. Our team was distributed across several continents and coordinated to ensure we had round-the-clock support for our site and mobile application.

I oversaw the development of our Ruby on Rails API, React Front End, React Native iOS Application, React Native iPad app, and Rails API for our custom kitchen operations and fulfillment tools and our proprietary Ruby on Rails nutritional engine.  The website used SQS, Postgres, and Redis for scale, database, and caching.  The kitchen/fulfillment tools are scaled to produce up to 12,000+ unique SKUs per week while managing inventory, an efficient production path, optimization of kitchen staff equipment, and cost optimizations for the business.  The nutrition engine is a proprietary decision tree algorithm that incorporates 100+ inputs and creates 100+ outputs that provide nutritional profiles for our customers.

In addition, I oversaw the technology required to integrate with third-party Physicians Networks (PWN), Laboratories (Aegis), payment pipelines (Stripe), and fulfillment (FedEx).

Key Projects included 
Build the prototype consumer experience from product order to fulfillment and shipment to food delivery.
 migration from a SAAS HIPAA compliant hosting environment to AWS based HIPAA compliant environment managed by Habit

Migration from a monolithic Rails application to a React/Redux front end / Rails API client/server model.
Built out of our subscription-based meal delivery service that used the Stripe subscription API.

Patents Pending
US Patent Application No. 15/792,673

Head of Engineering

Athos

Experience
I worked with the Software Engineering Organization as Athos grew their business from launch onward. This included building out the ecommerce platform from scratch. I worked closely with the design and other cross-functional teams to implement marketing efforts across the organization. We worked on the agile, iterative principles to further implement new featuresets and drive innovation across both the coach and customer experiences.

During my time with Athos, I was also involved in business development sales, working with various organizations like the San Francisco 49ers to demonstrate the product's capabilities and better translate the athlete's needs to the engineering and product teams. I also enjoyed working closely on our VC rounds to help successfully generate follow on rounds of funding and diversifying our Venture partnerships.

Business Relations / Sr Software Engineer

Learnist

Learnist is a social-collaborative learning company. Our product is the culmination of all our work in a consumer learning platform. It allows people to share their knowledge and that of the web in an educational manner. Learnist was voted by Time as one of the top 20 websites of 2012, Apple Iconic App, and Webby Award Winner.

I had the fortune of coming into Learnist as an Engineer but growing within the company to becoming the Director of Engineering and leading the entire engineering organization. We worked on multiple platforms with iOS, and Android development is paramount in the digestion of our content. We worked in a combination of agile and lean methodologies. The diverse team was compromised of 17 engineers with varying disciplines.

Aside from my role as an Engineering Director, I also managed the SEO strategy for Learnist, helping garner over 1M unique users daily.

Grockit (acquired by Kaplan)

Grockit's mission is to abolish Education and replace it with Learning.

To this end, we aim to utilize the awesome power of the internet to help the world learn. Our first step is leveraging the web to provide live online SAT/LSAT/GMAT test prep classes to anyone.

Grockit is founded on a few principles.
 1. Learning should be low cost and high quality.
 2. Learning should benefit the student, the teacher, and society.
 3. Learning should be engaging and interactive.

Featured in Eric Reis's book The Lean Startup - we helped to epitomize how a startup should work and function with lean and agile teams.

Senior Software Engineer

DNA Imprints

Acquired by Roland Solutions.

DNA Imprints was a DNA-based art business that took our customer's DNA swap and transformed it into a personalized print. We also developed platforms for being able to address the needs of printing deceased family members and their pets as well.

As CEO, I built a high-performing team of 6 people to scale our small business into thousands of weekly orders. Led the team to develop our ecommerce platform and our full end-to-end testing format for gathering DNA from our customers to deliver a unique print.

We were featured at the Grammys, Oscars, and MTV Awards.

CEO, Founder

Pixel Pushers

Pixel Pushers was a personal brand which I used to develop and launch my own affiliate marketing business. I was well versed in online sales and setting up multiple online businesses in order to develop streams of passive income. These businesses ranged from online shopping to working with other businesses to develop their online marketing strategies.

Owner

The Founder’s Founder.
Helping builders simplify, scale, and surpass $100K/month.

Over the past year, I’ve helped 50+ founders:
→ Build systems that reduce their workload by 10–20 hours a week
→ Launch content engines that attract customers on autopilot
→ Scale past plateaus with less stress and more clarity

Before this, I helped scale multiple companies past $2B.
Now I give founders the inside edge — turning complex growth into simple execution.

What I teach, I live:
→ 120K+ followers grown in 8 months
→ 100M+ LinkedIn impressions
→ I run the entire system in 30–60 minutes per day

What I offer:
→ 1:1 Growth Sprints for high-leverage coaching
→ My newsletter for founders who want clarity, leverage, and traction
→ Schedule a Strategy Call

I don’t sell fluff. I build with you.

Let’s make this your breakout year.

Starting over isn’t failure. It’s freedom.


The new story is often better than the old one.

Most founder-creators cling to what they’ve already built.
The sunk costs.
The title.
The identity.

But the truth?
Sometimes the bravest move is pressing reset.

I started my brand from nothing.
No playbook.
No guarantees.
Just an instinct that sharing what I’d learned could matter.

And I like my new story better.

→ I meet people chasing their own “Ah Ha” moments
→ I build systems that actually give me leverage
→ I’m more present than I’ve ever been

My wife says: “You’re far calmer and visibly happier than you used to be.”

That’s the power of starting over.

It doesn’t just give you a business.
It gives you freedom.
Freedom to be there for your kids.
Freedom to support your partner.
Freedom to design work around life, not the other way around.

The enemy isn’t failure.
It’s clinging to a story that no longer serves you.

If you want to level up your business faster, then join my unconventional Substack newsletter with 126K fans: https://lnkd.in/gfyweeTM

Ryan Yockey

Founder of Growth Code | Helping founders stuck at $20K months turn audience into predictable $100K+ revenue | Follow for posts on Business, Systems, Branding

Your job won’t teach you what you actually need to know.

Most people stop learning after their first job.

That’s exactly when I started.

I used to spend my lunch breaks bingeing YouTube.
Mindless, distracting, forgettable.

Then one day, my manager pulled me aside.
Not to lecture me.
But to hand me a list of TED Talks.

Later it was books—Mindset by Carol Dweck, Radical Candor, anything he thought would help.

I didn’t realize it then,
but that was the moment I stopped thinking like an employee
and started operating like a leader.

→ I got promoted.
→ I built confidence.
→ I developed emotional intelligence.
→ I rewired how I handled setbacks and stress.

We always talk about upskilling as if it’s tactical.
But real growth is internal first.

You don’t just learn once.
You keep learning until you become someone unrecognizable—in the best way.

—
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Kindness is the unfair advantage no one sees

The smallest acts create the biggest returns

Most people think success is built only on:
→ Capital
→ Strategy
→ Relentless grind

But they overlook a quieter force: how you treat people.

Because here’s what actually happens when you choose kindness, especially when you’re just starting out:

→ The intern you mentored might become your investor one day
→ The competitor you respected could send you your first big client
→ The assistant you encouraged might return years later as a partner
→ The stranger you helped on DM may become buy to top end product

Every founder has stories of doors opening because of one simple thing: how they showed up for others.

I’ve lived it too.
The hands that pulled me up weren’t always the ones I expected.
But they remembered the small moments of respect, generosity, or encouragement.

Kindness isn’t weakness.
It’s leverage you can’t buy.

The market eventually rewards the founders who play the long game of relationships.

You never know which small act becomes your safety net or your springboard.

If you want to level up your business faster, then join my unconventional Substack newsletter with 127K fans: https://lnkd.in/gfyweeTM

Real influence isn’t visible on a feed

It shows up in someone’s success story

The internet has it backward.

Most people think influence = attention.
More followers. More likes. More views.

But real influence?
It’s the ability to change someone else’s trajectory.

→ The founder who lands clients because you taught them how to package their offer
→ The employee who grows into a leader because you gave them the playbook
→ The friend who takes the risk because you showed it was possible

That’s influence.
Not a metric. Not a vanity number.

When you make other people successful, your success compounds.
Because you stop being noise and start being indispensable.

And the irony?
The more you focus on creating outcomes for others, the more attention follows anyway.

Help people win.
That’s the only growth strategy that scales forever.

If you want to level up your business faster, then join my unconventional Substack newsletter with 127K fans: https://lnkd.in/gfyweeTM

Every Job Should Level You Up

(If it’s not, it’s time to leave.)

The best career moves don’t just pay you more.
They make you more valuable.

Here’s how to tell if your current role is helping you grow:

1️⃣ You’re gaining leverage, not just responsibilities.
→ More scope doesn’t matter unless you gain more control over outcomes.

2️⃣ You’re building systems, not just doing tasks.
→ Execution scales when you leave behind infrastructure.

3️⃣ You’re learning how to lead.
→ Not just managing projects—but influencing people.

4️⃣ You’re exposed to real problems.
→ Growth comes from solving things that matter.

5️⃣ You’re gaining visibility.
→ Quiet effort doesn’t scale. Your work should create signal.

6️⃣ You’re building reputation, not just a resume.
→ Career capital > job history.

7️⃣ You have a mentor or multiplier around you.
→ Environment matters more than title.

8️⃣ You feel uncomfortable—but capable.
→ Stretch = growth. Comfort = career plateau.

If your role isn’t leveling you up,
it’s holding you back.

And that’s not loyalty.
That’s stagnation.

💬 Which one’s your signal it’s time to go?
-----


♻ Repost to help someone stuck in a dead-end role.
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The most dangerous founders?

They learn when no one’s watching.

And they turn that knowledge into unfair advantages.

I didn’t start out knowing how to scale teams, build brands, or grow revenue.
I learned it in stolen hours.

→ Early mornings before my kids woke up.
→ Lunch breaks with a book instead of small talk.
→ Nights testing systems while others watched Netflix.

That habit — self-education in my free time —
is what turned me from an engineer into a founder,
and from a founder into someone who can build brands to 9 figures.

Most founders wait until a crisis to learn:
→ They study hiring when the team is burning out.
→ They study marketing when revenue stalls.
→ They study leadership when people quit.

But the real leverage?
Learning ahead of the curve.
Stacking skills before they’re needed.
Building systems before growth forces your hand.

That’s how you stop reacting and start leading.

You can’t fake that advantage.
You earn it in the hours no one sees.

 If you want to level up your business faster, then join my unconventional Substack newsletter with 130K fans: https://lnkd.in/gfyweeTM

The wrong plan looks safe.

Until you get laid off.

I used to think success came from credentials.

→ Fancy titles.
→ Great schools.
→ Polished resumes.

The formula they sold us:
Get the job → climb the ladder → wait your turn.

But that ladder?
It’s wobbly. Controlled by gatekeepers.
And one bad quarter can wipe it all away.

Now I focus on building what can’t be taken:

1. Your Body
You can’t scale a business if you can’t get out of bed.
Energy is your edge — protect it like your life depends on it. Because it does.

2. Your Skills
Platforms change. Trends fade.
But skills compound. They stack, cross-pollinate, and outlast every market shift.

3. Your Mindset
You don’t rise to your goals — you fall to your systems.
Train your mind like your business depends on it. It does.

4. Your Character
Reputation isn’t built in public. It’s built when no one’s watching.
Do hard things the right way — even when it’s inconvenient.

5. Your Knowledge
AI is cheap. Insight is rare.
Consume less noise. Sharpen your signal. Learn to think from first principles.

6. Your Work Ethic
Hard work isn’t outdated.
It’s just been rebranded as “grind culture.”
The real pros outwork everyone — they just don’t post about it.

These 6 things made me anti-fragile.
No layoff. No pivot. No algorithm can take them away.

You don’t need more credentials.
You need leverage that compounds.

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li_at

Greg D

Rejection isn’t failure.

It saved you.

It never feels like that when it happens.
Rejection stings. It feels personal.
Like someone is telling you that you’re not good enough.

Every major step forward in my career came after a rejection.
Every one.

→ When I was passed over for a leadership role I thought I deserved, it forced me to level up my skills instead of hiding behind a title. That growth paid off 10x later.
→ When 20 VC's said no. I ran with building my own business fully bootstrapped and acquired for a massive profit later.
→ When clients said “no” to working with me, it hurt — but it freed up time and energy to land bigger, better-aligned clients.

In hindsight, the rejections weren’t setbacks.
They were course corrections.

Most people see rejection as a wall.
But it’s actually a filter.
It removes the paths that were never meant for you.

Here’s how to turn rejection into leverage:

Ask: what was the real reason behind the “no”? Skills? Fit? Timing? Don’t waste the lesson.

Redirect: Don’t bang on the closed door. Pour that energy into the doors already opening. Pay real close attention here.

Every rejection is a lesson. Collect enough, and “no” starts to feel neutral instead of crushing.

When you zoom out, rejection isn’t the enemy.
It’s the architect of your path forward to greater things.

That “no” you still replay in your head?
One day, you’ll see it pushed you where you needed to go.

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You don’t get beaten.

You just stop showing up.

Outlasting isn’t about perfection. It’s about staying in the game long enough for compounding to take over.

The early stage of anything feels like failure. That’s because progress is silent before it becomes visible.

Most people confuse slow with broken. They quit when it’s working—just not fast enough.

Endurance is a mindset. It’s built, not inherited.

Here’s how to train it:

→ 1. Focus on the horizon, not the score.
Your metrics will lie early on. Trust the process you built, not the dopamine of short-term wins.

→ 2. Build boring consistency.
Routines beat inspiration. The more mundane your discipline feels, the more unstoppable it becomes.

→ 3. Turn setbacks into reps.
Every loss is just practice under pressure. Collect mistakes like data, not like shame.

→ 4. Measure in years, not weeks.
Longevity is the ultimate leverage. You don’t need to be the best—you just need to still be standing when others burn out.

→ 5. Protect your pace.
Burnout is the silent killer of great work. Move slow enough to sustain, fast enough to matter.

Most people sprint until they collapse.
The ones who win are those who learn to breathe through the climb.

The winners aren’t faster. They’re just still standing after everyone else stops.

Follow Ryan Yockey for more like this

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The freedom you found, is what they gave up on.

Keep doing you.

→ When you step onto your own path, you trigger people stuck on theirs.
→ Their hate isn’t about you—it’s about the gap inside them.
→ They see your freedom and feel their own chains.
→ They see your courage and feel their own hesitation.
→ They see your light and notice their own shadows.

I’ve lived this:
When I started building my own business, the same people who told me to “play it safe” were the first to laugh when I took risks.
Now? They ask me how I did it.

Here are 4 tools that helped me block out the noise and keep moving forward:

1. Energy Audit
→ Write down what fuels you vs. drains you. Double down on the fuel. Cut the drains.

2. Focus Ritual
→ One protected 90-minute block per day, phone away (far away), deep work only.

3. Feedback Filter
→ Only take advice from people playing a bigger game than you. Ignore the rest.

4. Proof Journal
→ Keep a running list of small wins. On hard days, reread it and remind yourself you’re building momentum.

The lesson?
Haters don’t deserve a seat at your table.
They’re proof you’re doing something right.
Staying your course will always feel lonely at first—until it doesn’t.

Ignore the noise. Enjoy the work. Keep shining.

The critics fade. The builders stay.

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Your first attempt will be awful.

But your 101st could change your life.

That billboard nails it:
→ Your first workout will be bad.
→ Your first video will be bad.
→ Your first podcast will be bad.

And that’s the problem.
Most people quit after the first.

Here’s the truth: mastery is a numbers game.
The gap between your 1st and your 100th is where growth happens.

Want proof?

Fitness: The first run feels like punishment. By the 100th, you’ve built stamina, a routine, and identity as “a runner.”

Content: Your first LinkedIn post gets 12 views. By the 100th, you’ve built an audience, refined your voice, and started opening doors.

Speaking: The first presentation is shaky and awkward. By the 100th, you’re commanding a room with confidence.

You can’t shortcut repetition.
But you can make the reps easier by following a system:

Commit to 100 reps. Decide you’ll do the thing 100 times before you judge yourself.

Track progress, not perfection. Journal your workouts, posts, or practice sessions. Watch the curve bend upward.

Review & refine every 10 reps. Improvement comes from feedback loops, not blind repetition.

Detach ego from outcomes. The first attempts are supposed to be bad. That’s the point.

Everything you want sits on the other side of your first 100 tries.
The only way forward is through bad beginnings.

So put your ego aside.
And start today.

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Titles don’t create leaders. Actions do.

Most founders are confused influence.

The biggest myth in business?
That leadership flows top-down.

The truth is this:
→ Leadership has nothing to do with your spot on the org chart.
→ The most powerful leaders often have no title at all.
→ Influence is earned daily — in how you act, not what you’re called.

Think about it:
The engineer who mentors others quietly.
The customer support rep who takes ownership when things go wrong.
The founder who listens more than they speak.

None of them need permission to lead.
They lead because leadership is behavior, not authority.

And here’s the shift:
→ Titles expire.
→ Positions change.
→ But action compounds.

Like Daniel Abrahams is saying:

The leaders who act — consistently, without needing the spotlight — are the ones everyone ends up following.

Leadership isn’t granted. It’s practiced.

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Your ego is the enemy of mastery

Most fail because they stop learning

Richard Feynman once said:
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself-and you are the easiest person to fool."

That line has haunted me for years.
Because the moment you think you’ve "arrived"... you stop growing.

→ Ego tells you you’re already great.
→ Learning reminds you there’s always another level.

The founders who plateau aren’t the ones lacking talent.
They’re the ones who refuse to re-enter the role of a beginner.

Think about it:
→ How many leaders ignore feedback because they believe they’re "above it"?
→ How many founders recycle the same playbook instead of updating it for new markets?
→ How many executives hide behind titles instead of continuing to sharpen their craft?

Here’s the paradox of real growth:
The better you get, the more you must unlearn.

I’ve had to do this myself.
When my team stopped trusting me years ago, I realized I wasn’t listening.
I had built walls around my identity as "the guy with answers."
That ego nearly cost me everything.

Dropping it unlocked a shift:
→ I stopped directing and started empowering.
→ I stopped defending and started asking questions.
→ I stopped seeking validation and started seeking truth.

That’s when my growth accelerated again.

Because mastery isn’t about adding layers of certainty.
It’s about removing the illusions that keep you from seeing reality clearly.

The founders who keep winning?
They stay students—forever.

Humility isn’t weakness. It’s the ultimate growth strategy.

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You don’t lack time, you lack intention

Two focused hours will save your entire day.

Most founders confuse time spent with progress.
They sit in front of a screen for 8–10 hours, but the real output? Maybe 90 minutes of actual work.

The enemy isn’t lack of time.
It’s lack of intention.

Here’s how to flip it:

→ Block 2 hours daily for deep work.
No meetings, no Slack, no phone. Just creation.

→ Pick one priority. Not five. Not three. One.
Everything else is noise until that gets done.

→ Measure energy, not hours.
You don’t need more time. You need the right state of mind.

→ Audit your day. Look at where your hours leak — calls that don’t add revenue, meetings that don’t matter. Cut them.

→ Design your environment. Remove friction. Shut the door. Headphones on. Workspace clear.

Because here’s the truth:
Focused hours compound.
Distracted hours evaporate.

Two intentional hours a day is 730 hours a year.
That’s a year’s worth of deep work hidden inside your current calendar.

Time doesn’t scale. Intention does.

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Leaders don’t get to have bad days.

Because every reaction becomes a map.

You’re being watched — not for perfection, but for steadiness.
The moment pressure hits, your team is learning how to respond.

→ If you panic, they’ll mirror it.
→ If you complain, they’ll collapse.
→ If you stay calm, they’ll find clarity.

Great leaders don’t wait for calm — they create it.

That doesn’t mean emotionless.
It means disciplined emotion.

You can be frustrated.
But you don’t feed chaos.

You can be uncertain.
But you don’t project doubt.

Because leadership isn’t a title — it’s a signal.
And your signal tells the team whether to brace or to build.

When everything’s on fire, your tone is the extinguisher.
When everyone’s watching, your composure is the culture.

You’re not leading tasks — you’re leading nervous systems.

Your job isn’t to be unshakable.
It’s to be steady enough for others to find balance in your presence.

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Farrah Rawashdeh, P.E., ENV SP

I’m 43.
I've led teams of 100+, helped scale companies to 9 figures, built two personal brands from zero…

And I’ve still woken up some mornings feeling completely stuck.

Not because I lacked skills.

But because I was solving the wrong problems.

Here are 10 harsh truths I wish I’d learned sooner:

1. Hard work is not rare.
Discipline and clarity are.

2. Most advice is noise.
Follow people with the results you actually want.

3. You don’t need a new strategy.
You need to stick to one long enough for it to work.

4. Doing more won’t fix it.
Solving the right thing will.

5. Focus is the real flex.
Distraction is the death of scale.

6. You can’t think clearly in chaos.
Clean inputs → Clean output.

7. Your team mirrors your energy.
Burned out? They feel it too.

8. Scale is subtraction.
You grow faster when you do less, better.

9. Sleep is a business decision.
Burnout isn’t noble. It’s a bottleneck.

10. No one’s coming to save you.
Build the damn thing anyway.

Every founder I coach hits the same wall:
They think they need more output.
But what they really need is better focus.

That’s where momentum comes from.

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Losing what you wanted reveals what you needed.

But you only see it once the dust settles.

→ The client you lose forces you to rebuild a better offer.
→ The deal that falls apart frees you to pursue the one that actually scales.
→ The partnership that ends gives you space to operate at your own speed.

It rarely feels like a win in the moment.
You question everything.
Your work. Your value. Your direction.

But loss has a way of clearing the fog.

Every time I’ve lost something “important,” I eventually realized it wasn’t aligned — it was just familiar.

If you’re in that space now:
Stop chasing what left.
Start designing what’s next.

That’s where real growth happens — not in the comfort of control, but in the chaos of change.

The things that fall apart are often the things that were quietly holding you back.

Quote credit: Babs

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You don’t need more time.

You need fewer unimportant things.

When I started, I thought success meant more.
More clients.
More hours.
More motion.

If I wasn’t exhausted, I thought I wasn’t doing enough.

That’s the trap most ambitious people fall into —
we mistake intensity for progress.

But over time, you realize growth isn’t about how much you can handle.
It’s about how little you need to.

I used to chase every opportunity.
Now I design my business around capacity, not chaos.

My definition of success changed from:
→ “How much can I produce?”
to
→ “How much can I protect?”

I protect:

5am workouts for health and thinking time

9am clarity blocks for deep work

12pm strategy calls with no back-to-back stress

4pm being home with my kids

I don’t want a business that needs me 12 hours a day.
I want a machine that compounds without me.

The goal?
A Wednesday that feels like a Saturday.
A company that scales and sustains.

Because working harder isn’t noble - it’s lazy design.
Working smarter is leverage.
And leverage is freedom.

If your business only runs when you’re running, you don’t own it — it owns you.

Follow Ryan Yockey for more like this

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Losing a client felt like heartbreak

What felt like loss was actually opportunity.

When that client left, I was frustrated.
Revenue dropped. Ego bruised.
I thought I was going backwards.

But here’s what really happened:
→ I got my time back.
→ I stopped bending my business around one relationship.
→ I finally had space to go after clients who actually aligned.

Within months, I had 10 better clients on my roster.
Each one paid more.
Each one respected the work.
Each one gave me energy instead of draining it.

Sometimes what feels like the biggest loss is just clearing capacity.
You don’t need every client.
You need the right clients.

Founders miss this because we obsess over holding on.
But if you’re constantly putting out fires for the wrong customer, you’ll never see the opportunities waiting in the quiet.

Try this:
→ Audit your current clients.
→ Circle the ones who energize you.
→ Double down there.
→ Replace the rest.

The client that breaks your heart may be the reason you finally build the business you wanted in the first place.

If you want to level up your business faster, then join my unconventional Substack newsletter with 128K fans: https://lnkd.in/gfyweeTM

Jenny Johnson 🚀

Networking doesn’t scale.

Relationships do.

Most founders waste time “working the room.”
150 handshakes. 1 decent lead. 0 momentum.

I did a lot of the opposite.
No conferences. No cold intros. No fake smiles.
Mostly because I couldn't stand that as an executive.

I've picked one growth lever and made it compound: intentional connection.

Here’s how I run it:

1) Build a reputation before you need one.
A personal brand removes the need to convince. You walk into rooms as the default choice.

2) Shine the spotlight on others.
Connect people for no reason other than alignment. That generosity builds gravity.

3) Give before you ask.
My free profile reviews led to 1,000 inbound messages — and my next company. Scale the unscalable.

4) Follow up.
Out of 1,000 people helped, 10 said thank you. Those 10 are now part of my inner circle.

5) Protect time for it.
Two 30-minute blocks a week: coffee chats, DMs, intros.
Consistency > intensity.

→ Start now.
Networking is just a fancy word for connection. Send 10 requests. DM 5 people. Say hi.

Its not as painful as it looks.
You might actually meet some cool people.
I had one go from DM > Coffee Chat > $15k deal. 

The quality of your business isn’t defined by your product.
It’s defined by your relationships.

Build relationships like your business depends on them—because it does.

If you want to level up your business faster, then join my unconventional Substack newsletter with 130K fans: https://lnkd.in/gfyweeTM

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