Pillar guide
Building.
I built BestSelf Co from a Kickstarter project to $45M+ in revenue, sold it, watched private equity run it into the ground, and bought it back. These are the essays from inside each chapter.
Articles
12+
Revenue
$45M+
Years building
10+
Building the Company
- How to Create a Physical Product 101
The step-by-step behind turning an idea into something you can hold, ship, and sell.
- The 3 Essentials to Crafting a Product Experience
What separates a product people use from one they talk about.
- Turn Your Product Into a Real Business
The three product tiers that took BestSelf from a single SKU to a real company.
- Shopify 2016 Build a Business Experience
What happened when we won Shopify's Build a Business competition — and what it actually taught me.
The Hard Lessons
- Why 50/50 Partnerships Are Lazy6,200 words — the full story
The full story of what went wrong, why it cost me years, and what I'd do differently.
- An Employee Stole $230K: 3 Things I Learned
The lessons about trust, systems, and oversight I had to learn the expensive way.
- My $230,000 Embezzlement Story
How it happened, how we found out, and the operational gaps that made it possible.
- Inexperience Debt
The invisible cost of learning everything for the first time while running a company.
Selling, Regretting, Buying Back
- I Sold My Company, Then Bought It Back
The decision to sell, the regret that followed, and the deal to take it back.
- First 100 Days: Buying My Business Back from Private Equity
What the first hundred days looked like after unwinding a PE deal and starting over.
- 2 Unconventional Things I Did with the Money
What I actually did with the acquisition proceeds — and why most advice about it is wrong.
Running the Business
- How to Hire Rockstar Talent
The hiring framework that consistently finds people who perform.
- Async Hiring Sprint
How to run a full hiring process asynchronously without losing quality.
- My Minimal Ops Stack
The tools and systems I actually use to run BestSelf day to day.
- Tooling Audit in 30 Minutes
A fast process for cutting the software you're paying for but not using.
- Creating Business Processes & Systems
How to build repeatable processes without drowning in documentation.
- Decision Speed Is the Hidden KPI
Why the speed of your decisions matters more than the quality of most of them.
- The 45-Minute Founder Weekly Review
The weekly practice that keeps the business on track without eating the whole day.