Amy Buechler 🦋

I offboarded a founder once whose core learning from our work together was that he could play. That startups can be fun. That it's fine not to know what you're doing - you get to figure it out like a puzzle or LARP quest with your cofounder and anyone you hired to help. :) What have you done so far this week that’s felt fun?

Most newsletters exist to sell you something - which I hate enough that I have a core value around doing the opposite (“This is an offering”). I only send newsletters when I have something practical to share that I think will genuinely help founders build. And when I do, I share it freely - as an invitation, not a sales pitch or upsell (🤮). Subscribe if you’re interested in getting practical advice without expectation: scaleyourself.com/subscribe

Dean is one of the most impressive product minds (and hearts) I know - never afraid to go against the grain when he knows it's the right way to build.

Confidence doesn't require you to achieve success. It doesn't even require that you believe in yourself!! It just requires one kept promise - and then another, and then another. I wrote a short essay on this after talking with a founder and I wonder if you'll relate. Link in comments. Read here: scaleyourself.com/the-user-manua…

Another word for confidence is 'self trust.' You build it when you keep the promises you make to yourself. What promise can you make to yourself as this week begins? I’ll go first - I promise to actually do the highest-leverage (but most complex and time-consuming) work on my to-do list instead of avoiding it and pushing it off. Bonus points if I give myself grace as I do it.

After "build something people want," the most common advice given to startup founders is: "take care of your mental health." After "build something people want," the most common advice given to startup founders is: "take care of your mental health." After coaching thousands of founders, I've learned that isn't enough. Here's why: the phrase implies you're a fixed system. That you need to restore an internal capacity whose volume is already known - and known to be limited. But you are not a fixed system. You're a founder. And founders are built for growth. What founders actually need isn't just "mental health maintenance." It's a framework for becoming someone bigger than who they are now - at roughly the same speed their startup is growing. I call it "scaling yourself." And this article breaks down exactly what this means: scaleyourself.com/the-user-manua…

@Parents_Nook and I agree with the last part of what you said - I'm playing now with the idea of not getting in my own way and turning instead to being my greatest chaotic enabler. it's FUN (so far!! early days but I'm hopeful)

@amybue Startups or any personal projects if done with both head and heart is a tremendous journey of personal growth, you can’t hide from your own self, and over time you realize that it was always you who came in your own way.

Yesterday I felt scared to post my rebrand announcement, so I turned to Claude for support - who used my own words against me!! Once I got over my surprised Pikachu face, I was so glad it did. I leaned into trust instead of fear - and my body immediately relaxed. I knew I was going to post regardless and I could have been high-anxiety about it all week. Instead I felt open. I didn't know what would happen, but I knew I'd figure it out. I had support. And I remembered every hurdle I've already cleared that led up to this moment - which made the announcement feel like just one more. Fear didn't go away. I used it to articulate what I felt afraid of - making a mistake, losing it all, becoming someone else - realized I've got it covered, and I let trust drive instead. I'm curious: what was it like for you the first time you launched something? And how does it feel to ship something new now?

@Parents_Nook I completely and wholeheartedly agree. <3 creating something is vulnerable, if we're doing it right. it can be a true expression of who we are - flaws and highest ideals. it's a beautiful, humbling, wonderful, human thing. and we're doing it together, even if we've never met. :)

@_AkashBansal_ tysm Akash! :)

@amybue Congratulations on the launch!

The Founder Coach is now Scale Yourself. This shift comes after 10+ years and thousands of hours coaching founders - long enough to learn that the founder experience is more universal than most founders realize. The same fears, relief, overwhelm, awe, guilt, hope, and joy - felt at every stage. And almost no resources to help you make sense of the intensity, or grow into the version of yourself that your startup demands and your vision requires. Scale Yourself is a name that reflects all I’ve built to change that, beyond just coaching (the least scalable business model ever): A User Manual for Founder Psychology. A network of trusted founder coaches. Ready and available to support you. And a lot more coming(!!).

After thousands of hours coaching founders, and thousands more thinking about what I've learned - I'm announcing a change tomorrow that reflects who I've become over the last few years. it feels a little scary and exactly right. Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about it first: thefoundercoach.com/subscribe

@paulg also, "the partnership." As if 'YC' is a hivemind entity that has a singular opinion about anything. its diversity of strong, loosely held individual opinions is what made it such a fun, dynamic, creative place to be

@paulg I was interviewed about this 2 years ago by the WSJ and it felt like the reporter simply refused to believe that I didn't have any sense whatsoever that Sam was mistrusted by the partnership.

Since there's yet another article claiming that we "removed" Sam because partners distrusted him, no, we didn't. It's not because I want to defend Sam that I keep insisting on this. It's because it's so annoying to read false accounts of my own actions.

@rachitajg "Management" sets up a hierarchy I don't agree with - it's right up there with 'managing' and 'controlling' your internal experience. But Ben's intentions were in the right place. :)

@amybue Agreed. The toughest job as a founder as Ben Horowitz stated years ago is “managing your own psychology”. It demands integration of thoughts and emotions and certainly starts with self awareness.

Founders start out believing their feelings will slow them down. It's true that emotions move through the body more slowly than thoughts occur in the mind - but the best founders I've ever worked with aren't emotionless monsters. 1/3

They've learned to integrate both their emotion and their cognition - and to use both as they build. Feelings and thoughts are different channels of information. In an environment where there's never enough data to feel certain, why would you ignore half of what you know? 2/3

What's an emotion you're feeling right now - and what is it communicating to you? 3/3

People wouldn't be so upset at billionaires if the government actually did its job.