Every founder walks a unique path, one shaped by their personal experiences, values, and the challenges they’ve set out to solve. But let’s zoom out for a moment — there’s a pattern among the founders who really succeed, those who not only build damn good, if not great, companies but ones they love working in. I call these individuals the “more likely to succeed” founders, and I’m fascinated by how they think.
Their mindset isn’t tied to a specific industry or business model. Rather, it’s what I call the Founder’s Mindset — a force that not only sets founders apart from everyone else in their organizations but also separates successful founders from those who struggle.
Last week, I laid the foundation for my Founder’s Mindset framework in the first installment of the Founder Mode series. Founder Mode has spread like wildfire lately, and everyone has a different take. I believe this mode and its associated mindset are both a gift and a burden for those of us who embrace them. Most importantly, this mindset creates a deep connection to our companies, giving us an almost instinctual understanding of what matters most.
Before we explore the complexities of Founder Mode in future articles in this series, we need to unpack the Founder’s Mindset and the traits that define it.
Owning Your Company’s Long-Term Results
At the core of the Founder’s Mindset, you’ll find a profound sense of ownership that goes far beyond legal claims or equity stakes. It’s about owning every aspect of your company’s success and failure, from the big picture to the smallest details.
As founders, we feel personally accountable for everything — from product development to culture, from customer relationships to brand and market perception. Successful founders tend to be way more conscientious about how their choices impact the entire organization and everyone in it. (Later in this series, I’ll talk more about the personality types founders tend to have.)
This ownership often leads us to focus on the long term. Many successful founders tolerate short-term pain for future gain, weighing decisions with the company’s Compelling and Audacious Goals in mind. This means we’re usually willing to make sacrifices others won’t. We’ll put in 80-hour workweeks, tighten our personal budgets, and obsess over details because we deeply, deeply believe the company’s success is a reflection of our own integrity.
But this kind of mentality can also make it hard for us to delegate key roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities to our team members. Letting go, even as the company scales, often feels like giving up control of a piece of our identity. But this is where the next trait of the Founder’s Mindset — your vision — kicks in.
An Unwavering Vision as Your Northern Constellation
I believe that founders, especially Visionary and Legacy founders, are driven by an unshakable conviction about what our companies can become. This isn’t just optimism — it’s a clear, often contrarian, view of the future that sets us apart. We’re eager to take risks others wouldn’t dream of because we have an intuitive sense for not just opportunity but danger. This is why lots of Visionary and Legacy founders are “Intuitives” based on the Jung/Myers typology. We have a strong sense for what the market needs, even when the market doesn’t know it yet.
So when you’re struggling to delegate and avoid burnout, rely on your vision to provide clarity in the chaos. Why? Because founders with an unwavering vision stay focused on long-term goals, even when others around us are getting caught up in day-to-day noise. That’s why I like to call vision a founder’s Northern Constellation. It’s the difference between companies I call Scalers versus ones that are Scalars (which I go into more deeply in Ninety’s Vision Builders Workbook).
When you trust that your team members have the Competency, Commitment, and Capacity to perform well in their roles and also are deeply aligned with your vision, it becomes much easier to let go. Build a team you trust so you’ll be able to focus on the work that only you can do — the work that drives your business forward as you continue to embody the Founder’s Mindset.
Embracing the Truth of Grow or Die
Every founder operates under a constant constraint: resources. Whether it’s money, time, or talent, we rarely have everything we need. But as I’ve covered on this blog before, every organization is either growing or dying, and limited resources promote ingenuity in the 
really successful companies that are able to reach Stage 5 and beyond. Often, the Founder’s Mindset is about finding creative ways to do more with less — about turning challenges into advantages.
Truly great founders are not just resourceful but also resilient and antifragile. So what’s the difference between the two? It’s really simple: You can’t learn to adapt and thrive if you don’t learn to withstand first.
Resilience is about more than just grit. It’s about the ability to maintain focus and determination in the face of uncertainty. Founders frequently find themselves in situations where no one has answers and every decision feels like a gamble. The really good ones have the ability to stay calm under pressure (most of the time — we’re humans too) and push through those moments of doubt so we can persevere when others would quit.
Most Visionary and Legacy founders rarely accept “no” as an answer. We’ll push past roadblocks, dig deeper, and find unconventional solutions to seemingly impossible challenges. That’s antifragility. It’s this relentless resourcefulness that allows us to bootstrap our way through tough times, hire top talent even when we can’t offer market salaries yet, or build a satisfactory product using fewer resources.
What sets great founders apart is that when things go wrong — and they often do — we don’t shy away from failure. We learn from it, evolve, and come back stronger.
Constant Improvement = Enduring Success
That same commitment to evolution is what turns ambitious founders into lifelong learners. We’re always seeking new knowledge, skills, and insights to improve ourselves, our teams, and our organizations. This curiosity and willingness to learn is what drives growth and keeps us ahead of the competition. That’s why here at Ninety, “inquisitive” is one of our Core Values. Continuous learning is how we adapt to changes and challenges that would topple other, less-prepared businesses.
So what does continuous learning look like? It looks like staying up-to-date with industry trends, seeking out mentorship when it makes sense, prioritizing constant improvement, and relentlessly seeking the truth. As I like to say:
Average founders want to be left alone.
Good founders want a coach.
Great founders want to know the truth.
Founders who embrace this mindset are more likely to build resilient, antifragile, and innovative companies. So make sure you’re making the time for your own learning and creating a structured approach to both personal and professional development.
Honoring the Role of People in Your Success
Successful founders know that we wouldn’t exist without our Ideal Stakeholders, particularly our Ideal Customers. We have an innate understanding of who our Ideal Customer is (keep in mind, not all customers are ideal) as well as their needs and desires. We’re constantly seeking feedback and iterating on our products and/or services to better serve them. As a result, we maintain deep connections with our Ideal Stakeholders and ensure our companies remain relevant, even in rapidly changing markets.
Centering your Ideal Stakeholders means going above and beyond to deliver exceptional experiences. It’s about understanding that they are the lifeblood of our companies and that their well-being is paramount. Founders who are passionate about their Ideal Customers are more likely to build products that truly address their problems and create lasting value.
But long-term success depends on balancing the needs of your Ideal Stakeholders with other important aspects of your organization, such as scaling operations or leading internal teams. Building a sound strategy means deeply understanding the role that each stakeholder plays in all elements of your success as your company grows and scales.
Balance Leadership with Empathy
Emotional intelligence is another crucial trait of the Founder’s Mindset. It’s the ability to effectively understand, manage, and express emotions, both in yourself and in others. Founders with high emotional intelligence are better equipped to build strong relationships, lead effective teams, and navigate the complexities of interpersonal connection.
Self-awareness, empathy, and conflict resolution are all important here, but I’ve also come to believe that emotional intelligence is about having a well-developed worldview that helps you succeed as a modern leader. Founders who possess this trait are more likely to be respected and considered competent. They’re also likely to create positive work environments, prioritize collaboration, and build cultures of trust and respect. Plus, they connect with their team members on a deeper level and inspire them to achieve better and better outcomes.
Still, founders who are highly empathetic may also struggle to make tough calls or enforce boundaries. This is why I have a related hypothesis that most good founders tend to be disagreeable. So it’s important for us to balance our emotional intelligence with the ability to make objective, strategic decisions.
Up Next…
By now, it should be clear that the Founder’s Mindset is a powerful driver of growth across all Stages of Development. It allows all your Ideal Stakeholders to focus, align, and thrive in a company that leaves a lasting legacy. At the same time, successful founders should balance accountability with responsibility, resourcefulness with investment, resilience with antifragility, and empathy with objectivity. The ability to juggle these (and many more) often conflicting needs while staying intentionally modal speaks to what it means to operate in Founder Mode.
In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss the thirteen modes that ambitious founders use to build and sustain great companies. Understanding and intentionally shifting between these modes is key to overcoming the challenges inherent in the Founder’s Mindset, paving the way for you to lead your company effectively through each Stage of Development and beyond.
If you want to stay tuned, I encourage you to sign up to receive email updates with each new installment of the Founder Mode Series. I’d also love you to share this with others who are grappling with “Founder Mode,” whether they’re a founder or working with one. I want this series to spark discussions and debates — after all, that’s how we learn and grow. As someone who knows he’s “guilty” of Founder Mode, I’m genuinely excited to explore these ideas with any and everyone who's interested in this topic.
So… I’m adding this link to my Google Docs draft of this series. I’d love to get your feedback and read stories from those who have experienced the good, the bad, or the ugly of working with one or more founders in Founder Mode. Who knows — maybe this will turn into a book that includes lots of great stories about founders around the world.
Read the rest of the Founder Mode Series:
- Part 1: What Is Founder Mode, Really?
- Part 3: 13 Essential Modes for Founders
