StartUp Founders: Small Windows

Hey Reader,

Happy New Year to you, your family, your friends, and the people who kept you sane. 2025 is done. 2026 is about AIB (Am I Better).

Whatever post-mortem you needed to run. Run it.
Whatever story you needed to tell yourself. Tell it.

Let's not make weird promises about the version of you that magically appears in January. You, like everyone, spent the last week thinking about 2026 and what will be different. Maybe you wrote goals, set intentions, and prob told yourself this year would be "the one." I support it all, but none of it really matters if you don't execute.

So maybe we start small. What are you shipping in January that is going to have impact?

Shipping is the transition from thought to fact. A signed contract is shipped. A recorded demo is shipped. An automated workflow is shipped. Shipping isn't just a technical term - it's an evidentiary one.

It means something real now exists in the world that didn't exist yesterday. Could be a 10x feature, better sales process, new outbound sequence, cleaner onboarding, more structured meetings - whatever - the goal is to move the work from "in progress" to "done" because at the end of January, the question is binary... Did you actually do it.

I am a massive fan of long term goals, maintaining the north star and having clarity of the distance. I like roughly mapping out the year knowing it will all change, it helps me see through the fog a little. BUT long term goals have to have near term proof.

Working out what happens in January requires two things:

Backcasting: Decide the outcome, work backwards until the work becomes obvious.

Temporal chunking: Break the year into windows small enough that you can't hide.

That's it. That's the process that happens to work for me. Not complicated.

Put these two concepts together to get a plan you can't bullshit your way out of because it becomes binary. You either stuck to the plan or didn't...

So as you prep for tomorrow and 2026. What is the goal for this year, what is the concrete outcome that you either hit or don't?

Now work backwards. If that outcome has to be true by December 31, 2026, then certain things must be true by mid-year. If those must be true by mid-year, then certain things must be true by the end of Q1. The point is to make it mechanical. I want to know by end of Q1 if we are on track or if we need to adjust...

And for most of us, who don't know what we are having for lunch tomorrow, Q4 2026 feels too far away, which is fine, shrink the horizon. Which is why we need to have an answer for January. Without a January win, you'll wake up in February with nothing changed and being 30 days late on your plan in month one is how you die in month twelve.

January 1st doesn't change something fundamental about your capability to execute. Change comes from clarity, sequence, and repetition... not vibes... just do the thing, then do it again, that's change.

So don't promise me or yourself you'll be different. Just tell me what will exist by the end of January that doesn't exist today, and then spend every day making that true.

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

LFG.

- James