Anton Kovalenko

@danmartell My Not-Do list has one item that changed everything: stop being the person who answers every question. The moment I wrote down "if someone asks how to do X, point them to the doc, not to yourself" — half my workday freed up.

Call me weird… But I’m more impressed by what you don’t do than what you do. Where’s your Not-Do list? More success is lost through distraction than through bad strategy.

@awilkinson Applied this to operations. Every founder I talk to imagines the worst about changing their processes. "The team won't adapt." "It'll break everything." Then you actually do it and the only thing that breaks is the old excuse for not doing it sooner.

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." — Seneca

@dvassallo Simon Sinek wrote a whole book about this — The Infinite Game. But I only truly understood it after I lost almost everything: the business, basketball to an injury, and money when markets went sideways. Staying in the game hits different when you've already been knocked out of it

Starting a business is easy. Staying in business is hard.

@noahkagan The business version of this: fire your worst client. Revenue drops 10%. Stress drops 80%. Profit stays the same.

The older I get the less money I want to make. And it's more I want less BS to deal with in my life. My old house was on AirBnB - took it off and put it up for long-term rental. Weekly complaints, city taxes, annoying my neighbors, etc...oy vey. Just rented it out for long-term today. And as it turns out long-term rental makes more money! Go figure.

@Nicolascole77 Counterpoint: if someone's system is good enough, they don't need to follow up 5 times. The best operators I've worked with sent one message, one clear offer, one deadline. Persistence is great until it becomes a substitute for clarity.

Something I tell writers about the importance of following-up with potential clients: As a business owner, I deliberately don't respond to the first email pitch anyone sends me. Not because I'm not interested—but because I want to see if they'll follow-up. It's a very easy litmus test to gauge someone's competence and persistence. If you pitch me once and give up, that tells me everything I need to know about your work ethic, how much you care, how far you'll go, etc. Whereas if you pitch me and follow-up for months in a row, that also tells me everything I need to know. Your persistence speaks volumes about your work ethic. And I'm significantly more likely to hire you.

@jackbutcher knew a founder who spent 8 months perfecting his onboarding flow. For zero customers.

Study the inverse correlation between how easy it is to improve something and how hard it is to ship it

@AlexHormozi the gap isn't who uses AI vs who doesn't. it's who uses AI with a clear process vs who uses AI to create chaos faster. same tool, completely different results.

Friendly reminder that AI will never be worse than it is right now. If you assume any rate of improvement over any reasonable period - learning how to use it becomes your #1 priority.

@sweatystartup Users will vanish — no. Users paying $200/month will vanish. Users saving $10k/month on operations won't care if it costs $1,000

The AI bubble will pop: Electricity will 2x in cost again over the next 24 months. AI companies will need to 5x prices to break even. Companies who depend on AI will see costs 5x and will be screwed. Users will vanish. Market will plummet.

@danmartell counterpoint: sometimes doing 14 things is how you find the ONE. The mistake isn't exploring — it's never stopping to cut the 13 that don't work.

Most people do 14 things when they should do ONE. They're busy, not productive. Real productivity produces outcomes that matter. Everything else is distraction disguised as work.

@sweatystartup the bubble is in founders replacing processes with prompts and calling it "operations." when the price goes up, the ones without real systems underneath will be the first to break.

AI about to get 20x expensive. These $200 / month claude subscriptions are burning $5,000 worth of credits. The bubble is going to pop and it will pop soon.

@AlexHormozi On my deathbed, I'll regret the breakfasts I skipped with my wife and daughter to answer emails that didn't matter by Friday anyway

When you're on your deathbed, you won't regret cutting shitty people out of your life. You'll regret keeping them in it.

@victor_UWer @lennysan agree, but "ideas into reality pipeline" without ops behind it is just a faster way to create chaos. seen it happen a couple of times this year

@lennysan vibe-coding unlocked something real — the activation energy to start dropped so low that people who never would have shipped a product are now shipping. not a replacement for engineering depth, but as a 'ideas into reality' pipeline for non-engineers? genuinely transformative

So much vibe-coding happening

@Codie_Sanchez "stop watching the news" is doing 90% of the heavy lifting here

My 2026 wealth gameplan: - buy land - increase income - grow my businesses - stop watching the news

Signs your operations are held together by duct tape → onboarding is "this is Alex, he'll show you everything." → you learn about missed deadlines from the client → vacation = instant fires → someone quits, the process dies with them more than 2? not a people problem.

@IAmSteveHarvey sleep. I let go of sleep. still waiting for the growth part 😁

What is one thing you’ve learned to let go of as you’ve grown?

@matt_gray_ "don't chase virality" says the post designed to go viral. still good advice though — just self-aware enough to be funny.

If I were starting a founder-led brand again in 2026 I wouldn’t try to go viral. I’d build one idea so strong it could be expressed 50 different ways. trust compounds when the core message stays the same.

@thejustinwelsh or just skip both and play basketball. way cheaper therapy 😁

A very expensive mistake is spending your 20s and 30s trying to look successful instead of becoming successful.

@thejustinwelsh plot twist: you become the boss you hated, schedule meetings with yourself, and the headaches are now called "strategy sessions"

The most successful solopreneurs aren't scaling to $10M. They're simply making more than they did at their job, minus the boss, meetings, and headaches.

@paolo_scales mine went away when my business nearly collapsed without me. not because I was great — because I never built it to work without me. worst cure ever.

easiest way to fix impostor syndrome is seriously ask yourself if there’s anyone better than you at what you do in the world

@SahilBloom everyone wants to hire the "rockstar." I did too. three times. each one created more chaos than they solved. then I hired a guy who just followed the checklist. revenue went up 30%. boring wins. every time.

Something I've grown to love: People who are boring in the best possible way. Predictably kind. Reliable. Present. No drama. No chaos. No volatility. There’s nothing better than someone who shows up with consistent energy. You can build a life around those people.