Cash reserve
Keep seven months of operating cash: enough to survive two full quarters with no revenue.
Mind Shift · Free Resource
The Seven Laws of Business
An operating cheat sheet for owners of $5M to $50M businesses: the principles that keep a company documented, automated and human, and strong enough to thrive through uncertainty.
Build a business with a purpose beyond profit, a financial floor it cannot fall through, a brand strong enough to be its own moat, and a team loyal enough, and processes documented enough, to outlast any one person in the room. Including you.
1
Purpose Beyond Profit
Give the business a reason to exist that exceeds making money
Profit funds a business. Purpose is what your people, your customers and you actually organize around.
The constraint
- State the purpose in seven words or fewer. If it needs a paragraph, keep working on it.
2
The Genesis Principle
Reason from first principles and objective truth
Most process is inherited rather than designed. It survives because nobody asked why. Strip every decision back to the truth underneath it.
"If I started from scratch today, what would I do differently, and why?"
"Why do I do it this way, and how do I know it is true?"
3
The Net Seven Method
Three moves that keep the business financially sound
Profits cure ills. Cash flow pays the bills. Net Seven is the floor your business should never fall through.
7 mo
7 days
Financial reporting
Close the books within seven days of month end. Review the P&L and balance sheet every month.
A/R · A/P
Cash flow management
Monitor average days on receivables and payables so cash surprises never find you first.
4
The Brand Moat
A strong brand is the primary protection your business has
As AI capacity grows, trust tends to decline, which makes brand strength more valuable every year. Products get copied. Trust does not.
Where to start
- Brand visibility costs nothing to build on social media. The constraint is consistency, not budget.
5
Decision Velocity
Trade the long-range plan for fast, focused execution
Three to five year plans assume a predictability most businesses never get. Set exactly three goals for the next year and execute in monthly cycles.
Goal oneGrowth
Goal twoFinance
Goal threeOperations
The filter
- Work only on tasks that materially advance one of the three goals this month. Everything else waits.
6
The Hot Dog Stand Effect
Lead so well your team would follow you anywhere
The test: if you left tomorrow to open a hot dog stand, would your team want to come with you? That kind of loyalty comes from service, never from a title.
Ask weekly: "What can I do to serve you better?"
Lead, do not wait
- Offer bonuses, raises, profit sharing and equity before employees ask or have to justify them.
7
Asymmetric Endurance
No single person should be load-bearing. Including you.
As the business grows, its reliance on any one individual should shrink. That holds for your best employee, and it holds for the founder.
Build it this way
- Document every process that matters.
- Write down every KPI. A number that lives in someone's head is not managed.
- Automate wherever possible and remove the human touch where it adds nothing.
Stress-test it: remove key people on purpose, yourself included, and fix what breaks.
Where is your business actually stuck?
Score your business across strategy, leadership, cash, market and endgame in two minutes. Free, instant, no pitch.
A free resource from Mind Shift · mind.us/resources