Cache Ventures

What’s your first thought when you see this??? When I was a kid, there was always that one house. The fun house. The one with the snacks, the music, the laughter where everyone wanted to hang out. Now that I’m a parent, that’s the house I want my kid to grow up in. Because the “fun house” isn’t really about video games or snacks. It’s about belonging. It’s about creating an environment people want to be part of. And that’s exactly what great businesses do. The best companies build that same energy, a place where people choose to show up. Where ideas bounce around like kids in a living room. Where people leave a little happier than they arrived. Be the fun house. At home. At work. In life.

Everyone wants to move faster. Few know how to pause. In a world obsessed with urgency, stillness is rebellion. It’s clarity disguised as calm. The best leaders don’t react to everything. They wait. They watch. They decide with precision. Stillness isn’t about doing nothing: it’s about doing the right thing at the right time. You don’t need more motion. You need more meaning. Control your pace, or it will control you. When was the last time you stopped moving just long enough to think?

Excuses always sound reasonable at first. “I’m waiting for the right moment.” “I’m not ready yet.” “I just need more information.” They feel logical. Safe. Protective. But excuses have one purpose: to make inaction feel intelligent. Every excuse delays discomfort and destroys momentum. The truth? You’ll never feel ready. You’ll just get tired of waiting. The next time your excuse sounds smart, ask yourself: is it actually strategy, or fear with better PR?

Every business runs on the same engine. Most founders just don’t know what’s under the hood. Different industries. Different logos. Different chaos. But look closer... they all run on 3 cylinders: - Marketing → Sparks attention - Operations → Converts momentum - Admin → Keeps the engine running That’s the whole machine. Startups complicate it. Enterprises disguise it. But the best companies just tune it. When those 3 are aligned... demand flows, ops hum, and admin fuels the fire... revenue doesn’t grow linearly… it compounds. As you scale, those cylinders multiply: Growth, Product, CS, Finance, HR... all just branches of the same roots. Business isn’t complicated. Alignment is. If you had to fix one of the three functions in your business right now to unlock growth... which one would it be? 👇 (Marketing / Operations / Admin - drop it in the comments)

Most startups don’t implode because of market timing or funding. They implode because the founders picked the wrong person to build with. It usually starts the same way. Two friends... late-night coffee runs, scribbling ideas on napkins, promising each other “we’ll make it.” They launch fast. Get some traction. And then… the cracks start to show. One dreams too far ahead, the other wants to fix every pixel. One thrives in chaos, the other needs a playbook. They call it “creative tension.” But soon, it’s just tension. I’ve seen this story play out across dozens of ventures, studios, and holding companies. The pattern never lies. The teams that win ... really scales ... all have one thing in common: They built with intention, not nostalgia. All of them follow a framework that’s deceptively simple: The Core Trio: 1) Visionary (CEO) - the storyteller, fund-raiser, risk-taker. 2) Builder (CTO) - the architect who translates vision into velocity. 3) Operator (COO) - the integrator who keeps the machine from tearing itself apart. Miss one corner of that triangle... and your startup collapses under its own weight. And if you want the truth? Equal say kills more startups than bad ideas ever will. Founders romanticize “equal partnership.” But smart founders design decision architecture: clear roles, unequal stakes, and tie-breaker authority. Because when money shows up... or worse, when it doesn’t... equality becomes a curse. The best co-founder setups aren’t built on friendship. They’re built on complementary leverage: -> Capital leverage (fundraise & allocate) -> Code leverage (build faster than you can hire) -> Content leverage (sell & distribute at scale) Vision. Execution. Leverage. That’s the real holy trinity. What’s more dangerous for a startup? 💀 Equal say? or 🔥 Misaligned ambition? Drop your answer below... and if you’ve lived this dynamic, I want to hear your story.

Most founders are addicted to short-term wins. The best ones play the long game, even if it means missing quota today to own the account forever. Anyone can sell fast. The elite learn to sell slow and forever. You’re naturally incentivized to sell as fast as possible and for as much as possible. The problem is that this usually drives short-term gains at the expense of long-term lifetime value. Think of revenue like a faucet. You can open it full blast and have water flying everywhere, fast results, but messy and unsustainable... Or You can keep it at a steady flow, slower, calmer, more consistent. My preferred approach is a slow, intentional drip. Drip… drip… drip. Over time, that rhythm compounds into something far more valuable. That’s the power of the drip. Long game over short game. Day Trading vs. Value Investing. It’s not about chasing the quick sale; it’s about building trust, demonstrating value, and letting the drip take effect over time. The compounding only works when you’re patient enough to let the drip do its job. How do you balance short-term sales goals with long-term customer trust? What’s your version of the “slow drip” in your business? Be honest... are you playing the long game in sales… or just day trading revenue?

Everyone’s chasing the whales... I’m chasing the krill that turns into one. I was having a conversation with a friend recently. We were talking about another mutual friend... someone who’s vastly more successful than I am. We started dissecting the difference in mindset. His mindset? He walks into an industry conference and wants to find the biggest whale... the guy with the $200K watch, the one everyone wants to talk to. He wants proximity to the top. Mine? I’m a barnacle guy. I attach myself to people who are on their way up. The ones who haven’t “made it” yet... but have that energy, hunger, and inevitability in them. In hockey, they say you don’t skate to where the puck is... you skate to where it’s going. Business is the same. Every day, I’m trying to skate to where the puck will be. I learn from people below me, above me, and beside me. because this game is a flywheel. You pull others up while others pull you higher. The smartest person in the room today won’t be tomorrow. So the real skill isn’t finding them.. it’s spotting who’s becoming them. Who’s someone you met early... before they “blew up”... that you knew was going to be special?

The grind doesn’t build billion dollar ideas... stillness does. Naval said it best: “Work like a lion, not a cow.” Cows graze all day... constantly busy, never free. Lions sprint, rest, recover… and when they move, they move like lightning. Silicon Valley turned exhaustion into a status symbol. People post 5am alarms, “no days off,” and brag about burnout like it’s equity. Meanwhile, the founders who actually win? They nap. They walk. They disappear for a weekend to think. Rest isn’t laziness. It’s leverage. If you can’t step away from your business for 24 hours, you don’t own it it owns you. The goal isn’t to work harder than everyone else. It’s to think clearer than everyone else. And that clarity only shows up when your brain has space to breathe. So here’s your Sunday challenge: Do absolutely nothing. No podcasts. No “deep work.” No fake recovery scrolling. Just stillness. Let your next million-dollar idea find you... not the other way around.

Everyone in the room was too cool. *Insert globally recognized entrepreneur * walks in A literal trillion dollar human. Everyone freezes. Whispers. Pretends not to care. Eyes dart.. but no one moves. Me? I’m thinking: “I’m gonna say what’s up.” My buddy leans over: “Don’t do that, bro. Don’t look thirsty.” Thirsty? For what.. information? That’s when it clicked. We live in a world where everyone’s too cool to care. Too proud to ask questions. Too afraid to look curious. Meanwhile, the people who actually win… walk up and say: “Hey 'Mike', I admire what you built. I don’t know your world, but I’d love to learn.” That’s it. No pitch. No ask. Just respect and curiosity. Because when you stop acting like you already know everything... you actually learn something. Stop being “too cool.” Shake the hand. Ask the question. You might not get another chance. What’s one conversation you didn’t have that still haunts you? 👇