Chris Walker runs Refine Labs, where he helps businesses accelerate their growth. He also has a unique way of looking at marketing. For example, most business owners are chasing the wrong goals in their marketing strategies. The first step to course-correct is to acknowledge that what you are...

Jesse Cole is known today for disrupting baseball with his team, the Savannah Bananas. Today, he is being featured in the Wallstreet journal, but 15 years ago he was struggling as he managed a small team in North Carolina. He came to the painful realization that the experience of baseball is...

The 21st-century world is built around comfort. Cars prevent us from having to travel long distances on foot, food is available at all times, and most of us sleep inside man-made structures that shield us from the elements. You may count yourself lucky to be living in the modern world, but...

That is the feedback one of my colleagues gave me when I shared where I wanted to take my podcast and my business. 

I have recorded 175+ episodes and it has been 3 years since I started this journey.  The podcast pivots are a good illustration of how my business has evolved over the...

A lot of times, entrepreneurs and startups who are just kicking things off are so excited to bring their product or service to market, they jump at the chance to land customers — any customers. Instead of their ideal customer.

I have frequent conversations where, when I...

If you’re here, you may have already read this post, outlining the 3 stages of startup growth. If you want to take a minute to go there and read through it, I’ll wait ;). 

In that blog, I provided an introduction to the 3 stages to help founders better identify where they...

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. – Theodore Roosevelt

We all make mistakes. The richest, most powerful business leaders in the world make plenty of them. They’re a part of every startup journey, and most certainly part of our individual...

In the early days of your startup, you are running the show. You are EVERYTHING including the most critical role for growth and success: sales. 

Some founders thrive in this role. They are born for sales, perhaps even came from a sales background before founding their startups. 

While...

Failure. Just reading the word may make you tense up a bit. From a young age, we’re indoctrinated with the notion that success = winning and failure = defeat. 

And it’s not necessarily wrong to avoid failure. We certainly don’t want to fail as we’re, say, driving to...

I’m going to get right to the point in this blog post. I’m digging into an important topic this week — if you checked out this episode of Hardwired for Growth, this topic is going to sound very familiar to you. But it bears repeating (and multiple formats), because...

It seems like every week I’m either on my podcast or here on the blog talking to you about yet another question or priority you need to focus on in the early days of your startup. 

That’s probably because, well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. And...

Research tells us that fewer than 10% of all startups reach a million dollars in annual revenue and fewer than 1% reach $10M in annual revenue.

The 1% club is more exclusive than it should be, and I believe this is an execution problem versus an idea problem. Growth is not a...