Startup Founders: Build a Kill Chain, Not a Funnel

Hey Founder,

You’ll look back and realize: You didn’t fail. You just never actually tried. Parachutes are for quitters. But most founders don’t bail with a dramatic exit. They drift. Half-loops. Half-commits. All noise. It feels like action. It’s not. Let’s fix that.

You half-execute. Test instead of commit.
Cold email campaign with no replies? Failed channel.
Fumbled pitch? Market doesn't work.
Meanwhile, that email in your inbox, unanswered. That's not nothing. It's THE thing.

You can call it learning mode, but really, it's just avoiding the fact that focus is harder than motion.

As much as you might like the “fail fast” mantra. Most founders aren’t failing fast... they’re failing vague.

Taking one shot, getting no signal, and moving on as if it were a real test isn't iteration. It's lack of pressure. The founder's version of ghosting themselves. Literally f'ing yourself over for no reason.

Most founders, at some point, discover some version of the OODA loop:
Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.

An epic decision model and the de-facto agile approach.

OODA was built for VUCA environments: Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. Sound familiar? That’s you.

I live by OODA. Epic in the chaos. The blueprint of how to move fast when so much around you is unknown (and moving).

Learn fast. Iterate fast. Move fast.
It’s true. The fastest team to learn wins. So surely that’s the loop?

We build a thing, we release a thing, we see how people are using the thing, we learn a thing, we tweak the thing we built and voilà, we’re an agile, rapid iteration, high-falooting startup.

And it’s exactly where you see the stall. Because you think that’s the whole game. Watch, tweak, ship. Watch, tweak, ship. Infinite loop.

No question it’s rapid iteration… but not applying any real pressure.

Most founders are pretty amazing about deciding what to do, but they don’t target. They act without assessing, launch without pressing, and test without tracking. So they never truly learn. It feels like action, but, again, it's just noise.

You think you’re executing, it’s more like circling. It feels like forward motion, even momentum. It feels like you are doing your job. You’re not quitting. This is building, you are working, things are being done. Until you look at the cumulative needle movement and realize you’re not where you want to be.

It’s the difference between adaptability and targeting. OODA is phase one. Kill Chain is what comes next.

This also isn’t about skipping discovery. No one is shackling your founder creativity. Do the chaotic exploration. I live by the rule that you must only do what matters, but you don’t know what matters, so do everything.

Try everything because the signals are weak. You don’t know your moment yet. But when you find the thing that might work… the prospect that clicks, the user that stays, the vertical that opens, something real, some signal - you HAVE to stop circling and start locking in.

You have to draw a line, THE line, between exploration and commitment and in doing so the fail fast metaphor starts to break.

Because OODA is about speed. And speed without precision is just chaos in motion.

You don’t need a funnel. You need a scope.

There’s a concept borrowed from the military called the kill chain. Sounds aggressive, ignore the name, there is no kill, nor chain.

It’s about finishing the job and the mindset to doing it. You don’t just spot a target. You lock in. You track. You follow through. You finish. (You confirm it’s finished)

The technical name rolls right off the tongue... F2T2EA: Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, Assess.

OODA is designed for fluidity, the kill chain is designed for completion. Completion is about eliminating randomness. Ruthless and deliberate steps that force focus.

Am I asking you to slow down. Nope. Kill chain isn't about speed, it's about depth. Getting further in three months with one channel done with precision than six months with six channels done halfway. But, you should do six channels, in three months, all the way, because, you know, #foundermode.

• Find: Who actually matters?
• Fix: Where are they, and what are they doing right now?
• Track: What signal are they giving you?
• Target: What’s the most precise entry point?
• Engage: What’s your ask? What are you trying to unlock?
• Assess: Did it work? If not, why?

The great thing about F2T2EA is that if it didn’t work, you did it wrong. You didn’t complete. You skipped a step. Probably the annoying, hard, unfun one, the not sexy, easy, or fast one...

It’s slow. It’s uncomfortable. It’s pressure. That’s the point. That's the THING!

F2T2EA reframes founder sales as signal acquisition, not pitch delivery.

I’ve got a founder who sent 380 highly targeted investor emails. Cold. Across multiple channels. He kept detailed notes, signals, next steps. Relentless. I watched him F2T2EA a $4.5M round. It wasn’t magic. It was targeting. Precision. Completion. And, the willingness to just do the f’n work.

Work that most founders do as spray-and-pray because it’s easy and you can say to yourself that you did a thing. Kill chain is the discipline.

Not to repeat, but… You didn’t fail. You just never actually tried.

So maybe, ask yourself:

Did I lock in? Did I track signal? Did I engage with purpose? Did I run the full cycle? Did I stay in it long enough to actually learn something?

Or did I do just enough to say I tried?

Don’t die in the gap between “we did the thing” and “we did it with precision.”

No points for pointing your scope in the right direction. Build the kill chain. (without the kill, or chain)

So don’t just move fast, move precisely, build pressure over time. Know exactly what you’re after and don’t flinch when it gets uncomfortable.

You don’t need a funnel. You need a scope.

If I can be of service, feel free to grab time.

LFG.
— James