Busy Is Not a Growth Strategy

The Work That Changes Everything Looks Boring at First

January 21, 2026

In partnership with

Hey — It’s Charlie.

Welcome to the latest edition of Great Startups! Here’s what’s in store:

  • The Difference: Between Busy Founders and Dangerous Ones

  • From PMF to Scale: The Founder’s Playbook for Performance Culture

  • Solution: Do you have a demand problem?

  • Question: Why pitches fail (and a template that will fix yours).

  • Targeting Made Simple: A step-by-step guide to finding your perfect customer.

  • Hidden Startup Debt: The silent killer that’s slowing growth.

Get ready to dive into these power-packed insights for founders and growth enthusiasts!

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Resources

  • Carta’s State of Startups 2025 (LINK)

  • Sales problems vs. product-market fit problems (LINK)

  • Do you have a demand problem? (LINK)

  • Why pitches fail (and a template that will fix yours). (LINK)

  • Sam Blond on how to generate more demand. (LINK)

ICYMI

  • Disney+ is launching short-form videos this year (LINK)

  • Netflix is getting into short videos with a new vertical feed for mobile. (LINK)

  • Cloudflare launches a marketplace that lets websites charge AI bots for scraping. (LINK)

  • The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained. (LINK)

  • 1X will test humanoid robots in ‘a few hundred’ homes in 2025. (LINK)

  • Ray Dalio built a $14B empire by following core success principles that took him from humble beginnings to founding the world’s largest hedge fund.

  • Iman Gadzhi and Pierre de Preux launched a SaaS and hit 7-figure ARR in 9 months by moving fast, using Iman’s audience, and solving a real problem.

  • Lenny Rachitsky and Jen Abel on how to approach founder-led sales.

  • Carta shares 50 slides packed with insights for founders from 45,000 startups.

  • How One AI App Founder Makes $20K+ Monthly—and How You Can Too!

Recently Funded / Raised

  • Moniepoint raised $323M to expand its business banking, credit, and payments platform for enterprises across Africa and beyond.

  • Knownwell raised $50.6M to enhance its AI-powered commercial intelligence platform that helps businesses identify risks and growth opportunities.

  • Alto Neuroscience raised $301M to develop AI-driven precision medicines targeting mental health conditions.

  • CoMind raised $87M to advance noninvasive neural interfaces that connect the human brain with artificial intelligence.

  • Anrok raised $109.3M to streamline sales tax compliance for SaaS businesses through automation.

  • Findem raised $88.3M to grow its AI-powered Talent Data Cloud that automates and unifies enterprise hiring workflows.

  • Finster AI raised $16.8M to build an AI-driven research platform for asset managers and investment banks.

  • Africa Finance Corporation secured $6.78B in debt financing to fund large-scale infrastructure and industrial investments across Africa.

  • Niron Magnetics received a $171.6M grant to develop high-performance, rare-earth-free permanent magnets using Iron Nitride technology.

  • Cala Health raised $248.3M to advance its wearable bioelectronic therapies for neurological and chronic diseases.

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Growth Doesn’t Come From More. It Comes From Space.

Most startups are told to “focus,” but rarely told what that actually means. Focus isn’t doing more experiments or chasing every shiny idea—it’s having the courage to stop doing most things. Real progress shows up when founders cut noise: wrong customers, weak ideas, pointless metrics, and busywork disguised as strategy. When you remove distractions, you don’t just move faster—you finally have the energy to execute the few things that actually matter. Growth doesn’t come from piling on; it comes from clearing space.

Every time you say no—to bad-fit customers, toxic relationships, lazy marketing, or constant context-switching—you create room for better outcomes. Better customers, stronger teams, deeper work, and compounding wins. The biggest breakthroughs don’t come from improving everything by 1%, but from going all-in on the one thing that can move the needle by 30%. You can’t have it all—and that’s the point. Letting go is what makes greatness possible. (LINK)

Ok that’s it for this week, We keep refining our newsletter content, just hit reply to let us know what you think about this issue.