Good morning. Last week, we explored the strengths that fuel breakout growth for founders and startup CEOs, a la the superpowers that set a company apart.
This week, we’re flipping the coin to show how those same strengths, when left unchecked, can stall your momentum. Think of it as the second half of a playbook: first how to lean into your superpowers, now how to keep them from turning into blind spots.
Plus, you’ll discover fresh signals on the economy, how AI is unlocking new paths for entrepreneurs, and why building a strengths-based culture could be the growth edge your startup needs.
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BUSINESS PULSE
Americans Report Lowest Faith in Hard Work
A new WSJ‑NORC poll shows only about 25% of Americans believe that hard work leads to a better standard of living (an all‑time low), fueled by inflation and cost pressures.
What this means to you: In an environment where confidence is eroding, leaders need to showcase steady wins and clear progress to keep teams engaged and believing in the journey.
Source: Wall Street Journal
AI Is Powering a New Wave of Entrepreneurs
A recent Washington Post feature makes the case that AI is breaking down traditional barriers to business creation and lets people launch and scale businesses without deep coding knowledge, large budgets, or physical presence.
What this means to you: If you hold deep domain insight, not tech skills, you can still launch smart by using AI for rapid prototyping, outreach, and validation.
Source: The Washington Post
Strengths-Based Culture Directly Boosts Business Outcomes
Gallup research confirms that organizations built around CliftonStrengths see dramatic performance improvements: 19% more sales, 29% higher profits, and 72% lower turnover. CEOs who align roles to natural strengths create a stronger engine for sustainable growth.
What this means to you: Hiring and organizing around people’s strengths—not patching weaknesses—can unlock exponential productivity and retention, especially in fast-moving startups.
Source: Gallup
STRENGTH SIGNAL
When Startup Strengths Start Working Against You
Strengths drive growth. They’re the fuel that gets a startup from napkin sketch to product launch to early revenue.
But here’s the twist: the same strengths that power breakout growth can also slow it down if they’re left unchecked.
We’ve seen this in our own work with founders and scaling teams. A CEO with strong Influence strengths can rally employees, investors, and customers with magnetic energy. That’s a gift in the early stages. But if every decision, pitch, and meeting has to run through them, the company becomes dependent on one person’s presence. Growth stalls because nothing moves without the influencer in the room.
The same pattern shows up with Strategic Thinking. A visionary leader can see five steps ahead and anticipate market shifts before anyone else. But when that strength tips into over-analysis, the company ends up paralyzed from constant planning and never shipping.
Gallup’s CliftonStrengths research shows that the best leaders know how to pair their dominant strengths with others who bring balance. That means influence gets matched with execution, vision gets paired with operations, and relationship building is supported by strategic focus. It’s not about fixing weaknesses. It’s about surrounding yourself with people whose strengths cover the blind spots your own strengths create.
McKinsey’s research on scaling companies adds an important point: execution tends to break down right when growth should be accelerating. In practice, that’s often because the CEO hasn’t shifted roles. The “hustle everything through” strength that worked at ten employees collapses at fifty. At that size, systems, processes, and delegation aren’t corporate bloat, they’re survival tools.
So how do you keep your strengths working for you instead of against you?
Spot the tipping point. Write down your top two strengths. Then ask: when do these help the company? And when do they slow us down?
Design the counterweight. If you’re heavy on Influence, you need an execution partner. If you’re wired for Strategy, you need someone who thrives on operations. Don’t try to “fix” yourself. Instead find your balance in the team.
Shift your role with scale. The strength you leaned on at the seed stage may not be the one the company needs most at Series B. Learn to evolve without abandoning what makes you valuable.
One fintech founder we worked with had Execution as his clear edge. He could drive a small team to hit insane deadlines. But as the company grew, his habit of inserting himself into every detail backfired. Deadlines slipped because decisions bottlenecked at the top. The fix wasn’t firing him, it was building a strong VP layer to absorb his execution energy and spread it through the organization.
The bottom line: strengths win the early rounds, but they can also trip you up if they are not balanced as the company grows. Growth comes not just from doubling down on what you’re good at, but from knowing when your greatest strength has begun to cast a shadow and having the courage to share the load.
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GROWTH PLAY OF THE WEEK
Scale faster by aligning roles to strengths, not jobs.
When startups hit the growth curve, the default move is to hire for positions like VP of this, Head of that. But the smarter play is to map responsibilities to people’s natural strengths. A founder strong in strategy shouldn’t get buried in operations. An Ops Manager wired for execution shouldn’t be pushed into sales. Gallup’s research shows that when leaders align teams this way, sales jump nearly 20% and profitability climbs by almost 30%. The growth play is simple: stop filling seats, start matching strengths to the work that drives scale.