Amos Schwartzfarb - Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business

What makes some companies work and others not?

Not just the unicorn - status kind of work. We mean work in the fundamental kind of waywhere the company is solving real problems for customers and seeing repeatable, sustainable growth. Where things are working for you, where the business almost seems to run on its own. Where, as the operator, you have such a keen understanding of how your business works that its almost as if you have a crystal ball into the future. Its when you can call your next shot in the business, and then it actually happens.

When we (Amos Schwartzfarb and Trevor Boehm) first started working together, we would talk about this question: Considering the companies youve worked with, what is the difference between those that succeeded and those that failed?

Amos had a simple answer: With every company that Ive been a part of that worked, I could see in advance how we were going to succeed before we did.

His secret was that he could visualize not just what the business could become, but also how it could get there. In other words, he had a data - driven model for how the business worked. It was like he was seeing the business as one big machine, with a series of levers that, if pulled in the right way and in the right order, would spit out cash as predictably as an ATM.

Weve been thinking and acting according to these terms with our own companies and with the companies weve invested in now for over a decade. And weve seen, even if only intuitively, every successful serial entrepreneur we respect does the same. They dont blindly trust their gut and launch into some massive undertaking or chase an industry or venture capital (VC) trend, accruing gigantic risk in hopes of cashing in on some technological or hype wave. Instead, they start with a core belief about whom they want to serve, what that person needs, and why they need it. Then, action by action, they start piecing together a theory for how they could capture value while serving them, using data to test and expand their understanding every step along the way. Put simply, they identify the levers of control in their business, and then they move those levers.

The goal of this book is to take that process of finding the levers and creating repeatability in your businesswhat were convinced every successful entrepreneur does to reach his or her successand make it a playbook for anyone. Weve laid it out as a simple framework that any entrepreneur can use, whether theyre just getting started or are millions of dollarsor hours, or scarsin.

We wrote this book to take business builders of all kinds out of the world of constant hustle and uncertainty into a world of clarity and control. We dont promise that if you use this process you will have a successful business. We do believe that this process will give you the shortest path to finding a plan to massively increase the likelihood youll succeed, as well as the chance to execute on that plan.

The framework is a set of five tools, and behind those tools are five fundamental questions about your business. They are:

1. Who is my customer, what are they buying, and why?
2. How do I create value and ultimately revenue?
3. What do I do now and next?
4. Is what Im doing working?
5. Whats my plan?

Were by far not the first people to think up or ask these questions. The insight of this process and the book is to organize these questions into a single framework, laid out in the language of data. Once you have all these pieces, youll begin to think of your business as one cohesive model. In Chapter 5, well demonstrate the full manifestation of that thinking as we guide you through building and using a working financial model to run your business.

We have zero expectations that any company will figure it all out on the first try. Some companies may even take years. Similarly, you should fully expect that finding the answers to these questions will take a very long time. Remember, this isnt a recipe. Its a manual on how to cook so you can start making your own recipes.

Amos and Trevor are the main authors of this book with collaboration from two additional contributors: Cody Simms (who co - wrote Chapter 3 and the appendix) and Troy Henikoff (who wrote Chapter 5).

At our cores, each of the authors in this book is a business builder. Weve been leading and investing in companies for decades.

We have grown companies to $100M+ in revenue and collectively more than a billion in acquisitions, served in executive roles with other businesses who were doing billions in revenue, and have been on the founding team of, invested in, or advised hundreds (likely thousands) of early - stage startups and small businesses, including as a part of the global accelerator Techstars, Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Business, and through our own funds.

Most of us have also been around the block a few times. Weve been in key roles at companies through every boom and bust cycle in the tech industry and the economy generally for the last twenty - five years.

Each writer brings a unique set of functional expertise that spans sales, products, operations, and finance. Our vision for this book is to give you the feeling of having an entire veteran C - suite working on your business, right alongside you.

So why read this book? Because it will give you the five most important foundational elements for finding repeatability in your business along with actionable frameworks so that you can build the biggest, most meaningful, and longest - term business possible.

More specifically, over the course of the coming chapters, our goal is to provide you with a progressive foundation to build repeatability in every part of your business so that you can control your own outcome.

Levers is designed to bridge the gap between tactics and vision for entrepreneurs, aligning your team toward a compelling, metrics - driven strategy. If you read this book and put in the work the exercises require, youll start to see a few major things change.

First, as a team, youll start to say the same things .

The book is designed to help you create your own shared language for who your customer is, how you create value, and your plan for growing the business. Even midway through the process, you should start to hear a major shift in the ways you talk about your business as a team, and more importantly, everyone will be on the same page.

Second, you will start to know whats working, whats not working, and why .

The power of a metrics - driven business is its ability to tell you, with a strong degree of confidence, whether all that effort youre putting into the business actually matters. As you identify and refine things you need to prove in your business and how youll measure and track progress, you will become a master at learning in your business.