Spoiler alert: You are the bottleneck of your business’s growth. If you want to find out how to work past that, you need to listen to this podcast episode!

Nexus IT CEO Earl Foote was invited to join Jason Klug on Founder’s Field Notes, a podcast that helps entrepreneurs work through the challenges of being a founder.

Jason Klug is the founder and CEO of Klugonyx, a product design and development firm in Salt Lake City, Utah. His podcast, Founder’s Field Notes, is a deep dive into the minds of various founders and entrepreneurs to help aspiring entrepreneurs shorten the time from learning to earning.

After listening to this episode, you’ll have a better understanding of these three vital concepts:

  1. How your development as a founder affects your bottom line
  2. Without a foundation of marketing and sales, you won’t go anywhere
  3. Smart founders know they don’t have to be the smartest person

Level Yourself Up to Level Your Business Up

After 23 years as an entrepreneur, Earl has experienced all the ups and downs of being a founder. His biggest ah-ha moment was realizing that you have to level up through self-awareness. 

Both Earl and Jason shared that when they’ve looked back at the numbers, some of the lowest points were because they weren’t trying to develop themselves personally.

Sometimes that’s inevitable: you have a major life event or the business is going through a transition period. But Earl firmly believes that every founder’s biggest bottleneck is themselves. By knowing yourself, your limiting beliefs, your risk aversion, and more, you can break through those self-imposed barriers and build a successful business.

Earl encouraged founders to take total ownership. If your business can’t make it past a certain level, what are the skills, people, resources, and tools you need to get there? It’s up to you to find them.

It Doesn’t Matter How Much Funding You Have If You Can’t Market and Sell

Jason and Earl discussed a recent trend in funding that is going to hurt a lot of funders: burning through seed money without the sales to back it up. Many start-ups, especially tech companies, are being valued at an astronomical rate, but have no revenue to back up their value.

If you don’t know exactly who your client is and where they’re buying, you need to find it fast. Without your foundation set in marketing and sales, there’s no way for your business to sustain itself.

Smart Founders Use Other People’s Skills

When you’re just starting, you’ll be doing everything on your own. But hopefully, you’ll get to a point where you can trust other people to do things faster and better than you. Good founders recognize their weaknesses and reach out for help from experts in various fields of expertise.

Earl emphasized the importance of being a smart founder who develops relationships with people outside of your immediate circle. If you don’t have a certain set of skills, find someone who does. 

And remember that life as a founder means you’re always pausing and pivoting. Even after 23 years, Earl recognizes that there are gaps he needs to close to level up his business.

These are just three of the pearls of wisdom covered in Earl’s episode with Jason Klug on Founder Field Notes. Listen to the full episode here.