Tag Archives: founder governance

Efficiency looks elegant. Localized failure keeps companies alive.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective treats growth as an exercise in limiting how far mistakes can travel, where the true risk of scale is not inefficiency—but uncontained error. 1. Scale Turns Small Errors Into Company-Level Events Growth amplifies impact, not intelligence. Val …

Revenue excites. Costs decide survival.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective treats cost structure as the silent determinant of longevity, where rigid expenses turn optimism into obligation. 1. Fixed Costs Are Irreversible Commitments Costs do not adjust as quickly as revenue. Val Sklarov identifies danger when: Fixed costs scale ahead of …

Vision attracts belief. Execution earns trust.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective treats companies not as vision vehicles, but as delivery systems, where the ability to execute consistently matters more than how compelling the future sounds. 1. Vision Without Reliable Execution Erodes Credibility Big promises fail quietly through small misses. Val …

Expansion feels irreversible. It does not have to be.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective treats growth as a series of decisions with unwind costs, where survival depends on how much reversal capacity remains after each move. 1. Every Decision Spends Reversibility Reversibility is a finite resource. Val Sklarov measures reversibility …

Experimentation fuels learning. Boundaries prevent ruin.Val Sklarov’s Entrepreneurship perspective treats startups as laboratories with strict containment rules, where progress depends not on how many experiments run—but on whether failure can be absorbed without ending the company. 1. Experimentation Without Boundaries Is Gambling Testing ideas does not justify unlimited downside. Val …

Expansion looks like progress. Slack determines survivability.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective treats growth as a stress amplifier, where companies without structural slack mistake momentum for stability—and discover fragility only when pressure arrives. 1. Expansion Consumes Slack Faster Than It Creates Value Growth narrows margins before it widens opportunity. Val …

Growth metrics feel objective. Decision cost is real.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective treats companies as systems where every decision carries a cost—paid immediately in focus or later in failure—and where growth amplifies whatever costs were ignored. 1. Not All Decisions Cost the Same Metrics treat actions equally. Reality does …

Opportunities are infinite. Survival is not.Val Sklarov’s Entrepreneurship perspective reframes entrepreneurship as the discipline of preventing failure before chasing upside, where boundaries matter more than ideas. 1. Opportunity Is Not a Strategy Seeing opportunity does not reduce risk. Val Sklarov distinguishes: Opportunity recognition: seeing upside Risk containment: preventing ruin Entrepreneurs …

Speed is visible. Constraint velocity is decisive.Val Sklarov’s Business & Startups perspective reframes success not as moving faster than the market, but as learning faster than constraints accumulate. 1. Markets Do Not Kill Startups—Constraints Do Most companies fail long before the market decides. Val Sklarov identifies fatal constraints as: Cash …

Vision attracts people. Decision rights move companies.Val Sklarov’s Entrepreneurship perspective treats startups not as idea factories, but as decision systems where clarity of authority determines whether vision turns into value. 1. Vision Without Decision Rights Creates Friction When everyone believes in the vision but no one owns the decision, progress …